The Truth Behind Why Most Marketing and Sales Strategies Don’t Work

INTRO: 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're 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're 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 stoked that you're tuning in this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive into today's topic because [00:01:00] I want to dive into why I believe a lot of marketing and sales strategies, quote unquote, don't end up working the way that maybe you want them to.

And it has nothing to do with the actual results that it's producing, by the way. I actually believe that for many entrepreneurs and business owners, it has to do more with their perception about what is actually working and what isn't working, and also their expectations of what they believe the result should be by a certain period of time.

And this is a Bigger human behavior topic. So this isn't just around being a business owner or an entrepreneur. You could look at this through the lens of, uh, weight loss and the diet industry, right? Many people, including myself from time to time, don't stick with something long enough in order to see the results that we want.

And we usually set these really unrealistic [00:02:00] expectations around the results that we want in a given time that don't work out. And therefore we kibosh it, we try something new, we move on to something else. And I want to dive into this and unpack this a little bit, because I get a lot of clients that come into my world from varying levels of expertise when it comes to business.

And when I say expertise, I mean marketing and sales expertise. So from businesses that are just starting out to seasoned business owners that have been in business for a very long time, and they'll come to me saying things like, you know, my marketing isn't working or my marketing and sales strategies aren't working.

And when I get in there and actually do an audit and sort of diagnose, quote unquote, what isn't working, I actually realized that for a lot of them, their marketing and sales is working. It's just not producing the results they had set for themselves yet. Yet being a very key word here, because for many of [00:03:00] us, We want to put something out on social media and have it go viral or have hundreds of people buying our offer the minute we roll it out there.

And that is another human behavior thing, right? We have a hard time with what we call delayed gratification. We want instant results and quick fixes. We want that like dopamine hit of a result. Yay. But the reality is with marketing and sales for a lot of it. It takes at least 90 days to obtain data or information that will give us direction or a notion of whether things are working or not working.

And I always look at the data after 90 days and I can spot pretty quickly where things might not be working or where things might need to be optimized. And nine times out of 10, it's optimization, right? If somebody has given it 90 days to actually perform and do its thing, [00:04:00] and when I say 90 days, I'm not meaning you post one thing on social, you post two things on social, and then you just let it be and, and you're like, well, it's not working, or I'm just going to let them sit here and kind of do their thing.

I'm talking about consistent action that you're taking for 90 days to I don't know, increase your lead generation, for example, or increase your sales. The other problem that I often see is, is that we don't actually have a clear definition of what our goal is in the first place. So we have this sense or this feeling that things aren't working.

But then when I ask people, I'll say, well, what isn't working? They're like, well, it just isn't working. I'm not seeing the number of clients that I want. And then when I go look at again, the, the, what they're doing, I'm like, well, you're not getting enough people through the door to even reach the number of clients you want.

You want 15 to 20 clients a month coming through your doors. You have to have enough people seeing and being able to find what you do in order to have those people come through your [00:05:00] doors. So, and again, you could have a multitude of different strategies. It doesn't have to be social media. It could be paid advertising.

It could be local brick and mortar style advertising with billboards and whatnot. I'm just saying that in order for people to know about you and find you. You have to put yourself out there and enough people have to see what it is that you're doing in order to come through your doors. And again, these are like unrealistic expectations.

Lots of times when I break down these numbers for people, they'll go, wow, okay, I want to make X amount of dollars per month and I want X amount of people and clients. And I go, okay, well, cool, but age you have the capacity to serve those clients, and oftentimes they don't, or what is the price point? And the price point that they're using to sell doesn't match the number of clients they want to serve and the capacity that they can fulfill, doesn't match the revenue they want to make.

And this is where there's distortion, right? We've got to get clear on what [00:06:00] that goal is. And if we're saying, well, I don't want to set some monetary goal, it's not about the money. Cool. But what is it about? right? Because I could use this same sort of analogy or the same thought process with things like, I want to feel more joyful or more fulfilled.

Well, how do you know what brings you more joy? Well, I don't know. Well, then if you don't know what brings you more joy, then how can you feel more joyful? Like, how will you know what to do in order to feel more joyful? If you want to feel more fulfilled, but you don't know what brings you fulfillment, then how do you know what to do?

It's the same thing, right? So if there's anybody listening to this right now, this is a bit of tough love because I get this often, right? I get this often from a lot of heart centered feelers who are like, well, I just want to feel good in my business. Cool. But do you know what you need to do in order to feel good in your business?

No. Okay. Well, that's the place we need to start. So my top love is around [00:07:00] getting really clear about what it is you actually desire and what it's going to entail to achieve that. But then also matching that and measuring that up with some Realistic expectations, and I hate using the word realistic sometimes because I think that we can create really beautiful results that kind of blow things out of the water or are unexpected, but again, if we marry this or look at it from a parallel comparison to the fitness industry, right, if you want to lose 50 pounds, let's just say, or you want to fit into that wedding dress, or you just want Increase mobility.

What do you need to do on a regular consistent basis to have better mobility in your body or feel stronger or have more endurance or lose the weight fit into the wedding dress? Whatever your goal is, there's no right or wrong goal. It's just what do you have to do? And it's not a one off shot thing that you do.

We know this in [00:08:00] life, right? The culmination of these micro steps that we take on a daily basis, is the thing that leads us to what it is we desire. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to follow a rigid plan, like post five days a week on social media, send multiple emails every single week to your email list.

That's not what I'm saying. This isn't a protocol or prescription that I'm providing you to say that it has to be done this way. What I'm wanting to share with you is, is that when we're not clear on And if that goal that we're trying to achieve is not in alignment with what it is, A, that we're doing, or B, with the expectation of what is actually required to create those results, then we're going to have a hard time, because I do have a lot of people that come to me and say they're thinking, Thing isn't working, or I've been trying this thing forever and I'm not getting the results that I want, and I totally understand that.

But when I get into somebody's business, I often can pinpoint, like I said, a lot of really great [00:09:00] things that are working. But what ends up happening is, is that we jump ship or we change strategies, or we hire another coach or whatever it is. And I'm not saying. Hiring coaches isn't beneficial, and I'm not saying that it isn't invaluable to your business.

It absolutely is, in my opinion. What I'm saying is, is that we're too quick to pull the trigger. And I've shared this on other episodes, but what I have witnessed, in my years of doing this is around the three week to the 30 day mark, people get really antsy if they've made it past the first seven days.

Again, this is all human behavior stuff. I'm sure there's studies out there that have also proven this to be true, that like usually around seven days, People jump ship, right, which is why in order to create a habit, lots of times people will say it's 21 days. It's 27 days. It's 30 days. I don't know. I've heard a mix of things, but it's like in order to create a new habit, a new way of being a new way of doing [00:10:00] things.

We've got to stick with it long enough for us to be able to experience. The beautiful results that it can produce for us, and that's the whole notion of delayed gratification, right, is getting really comfortable knowing that the steps I'm putting in today aren't producing maybe the results right now in this moment that I desire, but they will in the long run, but I've got to be able to stick it out, and I've got to be able to commit to Seeing the results and with marketing and sales, it's a 90 day cycle, 100%.

From the time that you launch something and put it out into the world, it's at least 90 days. And that doesn't mean you get to 90 days and all of a sudden, you're making 100k months or 30k months when you just started. I know those are the messages that You know, infiltrate the Internet, but it's not the reality.

It's not the reality. It takes time to be able to create the results. Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible, and I'm not saying other businesses haven't [00:11:00] done it. But again, what are we comparing, right? Are we comparing our journey to somebody else that might be 10 steps ahead of us? right? In terms of laying a foundation in their business, having an audience already.

I mean, there's many variables that go into play when it comes to marketing and sales working in your business. And so we've got to give ourselves the time in order to see that happen. And that's a minimum of 90 days to get some sort of results, to get an idea of what is working and what isn't working.

And that doesn't mean at 90 days we go, okay, I tried the Facebook ad thing and it just didn't produce the results I wanted. So ads don't work, right? The very beginning of this episode, I said, it's all around perception, our perception and the way we look at things and the beliefs that we cultivate as a result of the experience is going to be the thing that's going to impact your success.

And I shared this on last week's episode, right? So if you run ads one time and [00:12:00] you don't see the results that you want, and you create and form a belief that ads don't work, Well, of course they're not going to work for you, but is it true that ads don't work? Because I use ads predominantly in my business and they work beautifully.

I know lots of other business owners that use ads in their business and they work beautifully. Perhaps they just didn't work for you in that 90 days the way you wanted, but if we actually dissect it, I can guarantee you I'll probably find Some key points that were actually working really beautiful.

Cause I see this all the time with my clients who bring me their funnel data, their ad data, and I'm looking at it and I'm going, well, what isn't working? Cause it actually is working. The thing that we need is we need more people through it in order to drive more sales. That might be the solution. Or oftentimes I'll hear, well, I'm paying too much for an opt in or a lead.

And then I look and it's like they're paying 4 a lead and I'm going, why pay like 10 sometimes? Sometimes I'm paying 20, [00:13:00] right? I get the idea of bragging about getting low cost per leads. I see a lot of ads, people selling that, right? Oh, well, I can get you a buck a lead or 50 cent a lead. Cool. But I look at things from a holistic perspective.

So I'm not just looking at it from the micro. I'm not just looking at it going, well, great, that's a 50 cent lead. Is that 50 cent lead translating into sales? Because I know my 10 lead is translating into sales, which is why I'm willing to pay 10 a lead. I'm willing to pay 20 a lead because I know it translates into a high ticket sale.

These are all perspectives that You need to carry in your business because it's not just one micro thing or it's not just one big grandiose thing, right? If you've got a vision of making 20k months, let's just say, and you're not hitting that mark consistently every single month. Yes, you might form the belief that your quote unquote your marketing and sales isn't working.

But in reality, when we look at the micro and we get really granular and we go, wait a minute. There are some [00:14:00] really beautiful things here that are working. Let's not Rush to burning anything to the ground here, or changing course or jumping ship. We just need to dial, you know, the lead gen up or we just need to dial the engagement up once they've, they're in your world, or we just need to get more conversations booked in your calendar.

We just need to increase your sales conversion on your sales calls. Like these are all touch points that likely will need optimization and improvement. But it doesn't mean that what you're doing isn't working. And the same is true for looking at things on a micro and going, my ads aren't working because I'm paying way too much a lead.

And I'm going, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, wait a minute. It actually is working because yeah, you paid 10 a lead, but you have a 2x, 3x return on your ad spend. So at a hundred percent is working and it's with a client that you adore. Right? So it's being able to look and [00:15:00] take the perception of what you're doing from the micro to the macro simultaneously.

It's being able to hold both of those and look at it from that holistic perspective. It's what I do with my clients in Spellbound, my private clients that I work with. And a lot of the work I often do, and I've said this many times before, is All around creating patience and shifting the perception and the belief around what they actually are seeing in the moment.

Because I get it as well. I do it too. I'm a human, right? We're all humans. We're innately wired to want to fix things and find problems. Especially those of us with a growth mindset, right? We're like, that's not working. Let's fix it. When in reality, there's probably a lot of really great things that are working.

And rather than taking a whole swipe at what you're doing and throwing a bunch of stuff out that's working really well. Let's just make these minor tweaks to what it is that you're doing. And again, the problem with that sort of approach to things is that we're not patient enough. So this [00:16:00] is why it goes hand in hand.

It's like the two P's, perception and patience. It's like how are we actually looking at the problem in the first place? Are we looking at it from the perspective of nothing's working and I need to fix everything or are we looking at it from the perspective of, you know what, I'm not reaching the main big goal that I desire.

And so what can I change and what is the solution within what I'm doing right now without having to burn everything to the ground. And then am I willing to make these minor tweaks and be patient with them and let them run for another 90 days. I've been running this same ad campaign for two years. A year into running that campaign is when I started to actually tweak and change it.

So I just want to give you perspective. Twelve months, I ran my one ad campaign. Twelve months. Did it produce the results that I wanted, [00:17:00] the big vision I have? No. It still hasn't. And we're two years in. It's producing results. I'm seeing things work. I'm seeing results, but I'm two years in and I'm, I'm testing and tweaking new things.

So I just want to give you that perspective. And the reason for that is because my commitment is to sustainability and to the long game. I also, I really hate building things from scratch and starting fresh. Like it's, it's way too much effort. It's not efficient for me. So I would way rather ride something out and hold my nerve through that, then scrap something and start scratch all the time.

That's just like really inefficient to me. And so it's not an approach that I want to take. So I'm sharing this with you because I'm hoping that just by listening to this episode, it might shift something in your perspective where you [00:18:00] might be looking at your marketing and sales through the lens of a, it's not working, it's not getting me the results that I want in the, in the timeframe that I want it to.

And, or you don't actually really know what you want. You haven't actually set a really clear goal of what you want and don't have a clear understanding of what levers you need to pull in your business in order to create those results. That could be another issue, right? or you're throwing spaghetti against the wall and trying a bunch of different things that quote unquote haven't worked for you.

And now you're taking that entire experience that you have, that could be six months, nine months, a year, four years. I've talked to people that have been doing this for four years and are still not kind of seeing the results they want, which is, I get it, right? I totally get it. But when I unpack again, why the four years and what have they done and what have they tried?

Again, it's a lot of trying a bunch of different things. Without sort of sticking to a [00:19:00] strategy and letting it see it flourish, right? And, and, or trying a strategy for 90 days and going, well, I tried it and it didn't work the way I wanted to. What minor tweaks do I need to make? What am I not seeing here?

That's where you can get your stuff audited, right? Get it audited, have someone look at it, and somebody that's looking at it from the perspective, from the whole, looking at that holistic perspective, not just like, I can get your ad costs down, or I can get your lead gen costs down, because like, it doesn't really matter if you're paying 50 cents a lead and they're not converting because they're low quality leads.

You're just wasting money in the long run, right? That's what I mean by holistic. So I'm always looking at the holistic when someone's stuck on the cost per lead and has some idea that the cost per lead should be 50 cents or a buck, right? Ad costs are going up all the time. We're also in the midst of a US election.

So anytime there's an election price go up again, there's things in the economy that cause [00:20:00] things to go up. It's kind of like the stock market. It fluctuates. Right? That's the other big piece of this is that things will fluctuate specifically with ads. And when you're spending on ads, like there's some times where I look at mine ad costs and it's like, I'm paying four or five, eight, 10.

And then other days it's 20. And I have a threshold of where I'm not willing to go, but I'm also not willing to pull the plug on something on a Um, a 30 day period or even a weekly period. Like I'm not looking at my ad data on a weekly basis. I have an idea of what it is, but I'm looking at the average because if I get knee jerk and I make that knee jerk reaction and I start to tweak and change things again, I've never really given it an opportunity to actually do its thing.

And that is the key takeaway that I want you to walk away with is that we've got to set these expectations and commit to a time period that's going to allow us to see the results. And if you're in it for [00:21:00] the long game and sustainability, then 90 days is just a drop in the bucket. Like it's, it's such a small timeframe in the bigger picture of things.

And again, I know that the online world has distorted our perception and our expectation around things, but we can have this parallel comparison to the weight loss and fitness industry. It's the same thing. It might even be with the dating world as well. I use dating analogies often, right? It's like when we, when we're not seeing something quick enough, we often give up before we actually have the opportunity to see these beautiful results.

And so I just wanted to share that perspective with you because I think it's one of the biggest reasons why there's many business owners and entrepreneurs that are stuck in this like spin cycle or this looping pattern that They're not where they want to be in their business and they're not feeling the success of it.

And they're maybe looking around at what [00:22:00] everybody else is doing and going, well, why is that person successful? They're not any better than I am at what I do. And oftentimes when I take a look at success and people that have been really successful in their business, There's a very clear distinction between the two, and the clear distinction is, is one is willing to hold their nerve and to commit to making the commitment over and over and over to take these micro actions and steps to see the results.

They're the people that will, You know, set a new year's resolution and stick with it. That's what I'm talking about. Those are the people that see success. Same with weight loss and fitness, right? If you commit to losing, let's just say, 50 pounds or fitting into your wedding dress or increasing your strength and mobility.

You're not going to do that off of a seven week challenge, right? You're not going to do that over a 20 day period and then go, well, I don't feel any stronger. [00:23:00] No, you have to commit to showing up weekly to doing the work in order to see the results that you want. The same is true for marketing. And the same is true for anything in life, right?

Any goal that you set for yourself, even if you're in a relationship and a partnership, you want to stay in a healthy, loving partnership that takes commitment, right? That takes showing up. That takes presence and attention. That takes not pulling the plug because one little annoyance that your partner has, right?

Leaves the socks on the ground or, you know, leaves the toilet seat up or whatever they are. You know, you don't, you don't end a relationship because you're annoyed on one little thing, right? You're looking at the big picture. Who is this human at the core, right? Who is this human? And what do they bring to the table?

And do they bring joy and love and light to my world? Like you wouldn't just end it right off of one bad thing. And the same is true for marketing and sales. Like you wouldn't just pull the plug on something that could be [00:24:00] really beautiful because, you know, you didn't get the Number of likes you wanted on a post, or you didn't get enough people that signed up for your program that you launched a week ago.

Like you've got to love the work that you're doing and love it so much that you're willing to commit to getting the results. And when I say commit, like I said, I'm not saying coach hopping or strategy hopping. in a 30 day period here over and over and over again. I'm talking about committing to a goal and committing to a strategy and one strategy, one offer, if that's what it means, right?

But you're committing to that strategy and you're committing to that path for 90 days. And at the 90 days, then you can assess what's working, what isn't working. And then you get back up on that horse and you, and you pick another data point or another. Area that you can just minor tweak and optimize and then you repeat for another [00:25:00] 90 days and then you get back up on the horse and you repeat for next 90 days.

And then after 12 months or two years, you're like, wow, I'm actually seeing really epic results. And it's because you've committed to the process and you've committed to showing up and doing the work so that you can get the results. And again, committing to showing up and doing the work does not mean that you're prescribing to a certain protocol.

I don't post five days a week. I don't send multiple emails a week unless I feel like it, but it's usually once a week. That's it. Right? I am running ads. Like I said, I've got the machine running in the background that allows me to be present and allows me to be in front of y'all, you know, daily because I've got ads running.

That's my choice, but you can choose whatever you want to choose. You could have a podcast that leads to your offers. You could speak on stage, you could rely on referrals, you could do in person networking, you could have Google ads. [00:26:00] You could put your flyers up in local spas. I mean, there's so many different ways that you can get what you do in front of your people.

So, it's about also thinking outside of the box of what that looks like, but it's committing to that. You know, committing to five conversations a week, ten conversations a week. Clients are everywhere, and I say this to my clients all the time, clients are everywhere. They're at the grocery store, they're at the park, they're at your kid's daycare, they're at your kid's school.

They're your neighbors, you name it, they're everywhere. But we get so tunnel visioned as well when it comes to attracting clients. Like I'm so tunnel visioned on, I have to land clients through social media. Is social media the strategy that you want to jump on? Because I often will say, What's the path of least resistance?

And the path you choose now for these 90 days, like I said, you're building, right? So you might build a pathway to find you maybe locally. Maybe you're putting your brochures up or you're going to [00:27:00] network events or going to the Chamber of Commerce, whatever it might be. And your goal is to get out in public and do these things.

And you do that for 90 days and it works. You do it for another 90 days and another 90 days, and then you can start to layer in. Other strategies, right? Again, I've been running my ad campaign for two years and I haven't really branched outside of that when it comes to any additional strategies. I'm now just in the midst of going, huh, can I optimize?

Optimize using SEO search engine optimization? Can I, you know, do more. In person public speaking and networking, like these are the things I'm starting to ponder, but it's been two years of running the exact same strategy. And now I'm just starting to look at how to layer because I'm looking to scale.

But when you're just starting out, you can have one strategy that works and you can stick with that one strategy. Trying to stretch yourself too thin often also will result in you feeling like I'm putting in [00:28:00] all of this effort and it's not working out. Well, let's just take our foot off the gas for one moment and what are you doing?

Well, of course, if you're creating YouTube videos and TikTok videos, and also being on Instagram and also running live workshops. Yeah, that's tiring. Of course it is, right? So pick a, pick a strategy to try and commit to that strategy for 90 days and see what happens. You will be amazed when you stick to it long enough and you devote yourself.

And when I say strategy, I'm also saying like, if organically on social media, that might look like 90 days plus 90 days plus 90 days, right? Growing organically often takes longer than paid ads per se. But again, it's up to you and where you're at in your business. So with that, I hope this episode has been helpful.

I just wanted to give a little bit of tough love out there. And as a reminder, because I do also think that not a lot of people say that, you know, not, not a lot of people are speaking sort of that truth when it comes to [00:29:00] what it actually takes to build a successful business. And not only from that commitment place and sticking with something and taking those micro steps daily, but also like the resilience, right?

Because there's going to be lots of times things don't go your way. There's gonna be lots of times where you do have to navigate that. And it's that inner resilience to stay the course in order to create the impact and achieve and live out your purpose the way that you want to. So with that, I hope this has been helpful and I cannot wait for next week's episode.

Cheers. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at Creatively Owned and online at creativelyowned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.