Expand Your Fempire Podcast #152 Transcript

The Importance of Intentional Marketing Strategy with Haley Gray

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Bing, bing, bing. This is Caterina Rando. Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I am blissing because today we have the phenomenal Haley Gray as our guest expert. Haley, you may or may not know, is the founder of women’s entrepreneur network. This is a group on Facebook with over 75, 000 members.

[00:00:57] She is also a marketing master, a marketing maven, and author of Fearless Marketing, Your Eight Figure Business Blueprint. Haley, thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:01:14] Haley Gray: Thank you for having me. Yay. This is exciting.

[00:01:17] Caterina Rando: It is exciting. Now, Haley, you and I have been friends for a few years now. We have spoken for each other on our stages.

[00:01:26] You came on the bliss retreat. I’ve been in your programs. I can’t wait to go on your branding cruise coming up . And you and I have chatted a lot about marketing. And one of the things that I want to talk with you about today is what are some of the things that you feel all of the experts tell women in business, women with service businesses that really get them in trouble?

[00:01:55] Haley Gray: One of the things that a lot of women want or think they want is they want to become a best- selling author on Amazon. So they drop five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars into this book project. And they get it published, it goes to Amazon International Best Seller, and there’s a reason I’m doing the air quotes, and then nothing happens.

[00:02:27] Caterina Rando: Yes! And Haley, as you know, I’m organizing my office, getting my upstairs office downstairs. And so I have this stack of books from clients and some of them I’ve read and some of them I haven’t gotten to yet, but there’s this one that’s on the top of my pile. It’s this beautiful book. This woman put two years of her life into it and she’s not in business anymore. And of course she was not my, she was not my client.

[00:02:58] She did not take my advice. When I said a book is not a business. And it’s not the first thing you do. The first thing you do is get clients.

[00:03:07] I love that you’ve said this, say a little bit more. What are your other thoughts on this?

[00:03:13] Haley Gray: Well, I, I think that the reality for a book is that it, like so many of the other things that are kind of waved up into the sky is like, “Oh my God, this is going to be amazing for your business. This is going to generate passive income for you.” Or you think it’s going to.

[00:03:31] Unless you are Consistently and intentionally and methodically marketing that book, you’re not going to make any sales of the book. And the reality for a lot of people is that the book doesn’t dovetail completely into your business and it’s not designed as part of your sales funnel.

[00:03:53] So you, you create this thing and you spend all this time creating and I can’t tell you how many people come to me and they’re like, Haley, I have all this content and I’m like, “I see that. And are you getting any sales?”

[00:04:09] And at the end of the day, they’re not focusing on the client acquiring activities.

[00:04:18] They’re focusing on the book, the course, the things, the pretty stuff, the gorgeous website, the eighth redo of the logo.

[00:04:28] Caterina Rando: You know, Haley, two things I want to say. One, what you said is, people think it’s all about visibility. “The more visibility I have, The more clients I’m going to get.” Well, visibility helps, but you still got to talk to people, right? And you still got to focus on your sales.

[00:04:45] The other thing I want to say is you mentioned about sometimes the book is a little aside from their business. I remember once I was at an author event. This lady’s sitting next to me and she says to me, “Oh, I have a book and I’m so excited about my book.”

[00:05:02] And she was in the real estate business. So her business was real estate. And she pulled out her book and I’m thinking it’s going to be, you know, in how to have investment property, first time home buyer, something. And it was, about stories my mom told me for a better life.

[00:05:22] And now lovely topic. I’m sure it was a great book, but it super did not make her an expert in her field. And some people can effectively do two things, but really that’s the hardest path. I said, I said way harder. Yes. I said to someone yesterday, you cannot have two masters. You can only have one -meaning your business.

[00:05:48] Haley Gray: And I think there’s this illusion you know, multiple revenue streams. Two that I heard touted a bunch in the online world because I’ve been in the online world a long time. Passive income, another lie horrible lie, that people are told. Passive income… Is rarely truly passive without investing massive amounts of money up front.

[00:06:14] So a real estate investment trust Where somebody is actively managing the portfolio and managing and doing all that stuff. There’s still work being done there, right? It is not truly passive. Oh, I’m going to sell an e- course and people are just going to fall out of the trees and buy it.

[00:06:32] Caterina Rando: We’re going to hang out at the e course because here’s, here’s what I tell gals over and over. I say, “Look, you might sell a lot of your e course. If somebody buys your E-course and they don’t finish your E-course, they’re never gonna give you another dollar.” And this is the thing that I want women to get.

[00:06:59] It’s not about client acquisition, it’s about acquiring long-term and lifelong clients. And Haley, I know that’s the way you roll. That’s the way I roll.

[00:07:10] And this is another thing, courses, online courses, and just like the book, they have to be marketed, marketed, marketed. And then those don’t convert to long term clients.

[00:07:23] Cause most people never finished their course, even when you have great email sequences and adult learning embraced in your course.

[00:07:35] Haley Gray: Absolutely. And the other thing too is that, you know, if you think about online courses, the finish rate is only somewhere in the two to 3 percent range. The statistics are horrible for finishing an online course.

[00:07:51] I only use online courses and online modules in my business as additional collateral. “Oh, you’re doing this thing with me. Oh, by the way, here’s this other online course.” Because the reality for online course marketing is that the cost of marketing a course and getting people into that course is so incredibly high that it is just not worth it.

[00:08:19] And I mean, I know people are going to look at me and they’re like, but “Haley, you have hundreds of thousands of followers.” And I’m like, and yes, and I can choose. Where I’m trying to get people. Do I want people into that course that it is, 497 and 997 and they’re only going to ever give me money once.

[00:08:42] Or am I going to be looking at someone who is a one on one person consulting client that is paying me thousands of dollars or “done for you” client that’s thousands of dollars Where am I going to spend my time and my money? I don’t have infinite resources. Nobody does.

[00:09:02] Which clients are you going to spend your time and your resources going after? Do you want that one time one off that you made an actual profit of 23 on? Or do you want somebody over here that you’re making a much better profit margin on?

[00:09:20] Caterina Rando: Haley I love this because this speaks to strategy. And of course, you also know, I love group programs and group programs help keep people engaged. I’m suggesting you deliver that course in the form of a group program, because then your clients will keep coming back.

[00:09:39] I love what you said about, you know, “do I want to put my attention on selling this course? That’s going to give me low profit margin and they’re going to only buy once or long term clients that will make a much more substantial investment.”

[00:09:54] For me, you know, I have my center in San Francisco that we rent to women if they want to do their workshops, all my clients get to use it. I don’t put any attention on renting it because why do I want to put attention on renting something for one day? Maybe profit of 400, because it takes just as many sales conversations as it does to enroll someone in a big course.

[00:10:18] I bought a skirt yesterday from a direct seller gal. I had two phone calls and three Facebook communications with her and all I was buying was a skirt.

[00:10:32] So my point is that You have to be strategic about what you’re putting your attention on. And is that going to turn into long term and lifelong clients?

[00:10:42] Okay, good. So Haley, now, you know what, my friend, I cannot have you here and not talk with you about how does somebody build a thriving Facebook group? And really you’re great at the Facebook building of getting all the members, but you’re also great at cultivating engagement in your group.

[00:11:07] Can you talk to either of those a little bit about your thoughts?

[00:11:12] Let’s start with the first one. How do you get so many people in your group? And then let’s talk about how you keep them engaged.

[00:11:20] Haley Gray: So when I was first starting my group the first few years, I did a number of different things.

[00:11:27] And here’s one of the reasons I don’t really push so hard on necessarily building a great big Facebook group as being hugely profitable because most people would either not be willing or not be able to do some of the things I did.

[00:11:44] I did workshops every single week in my group. Every week for a year and then when we had the ability finally to do Facebook live, I used to do Facebook lives in my group and trainings in my group every single day at 10 p. m. Eastern for years.

[00:12:10] Now, I do it a little bit differently because I don’t have the same amount of time or energy. And I put shorts and reels and other things in my group and I occasionally do longer trainings.

[00:12:25] And I spend a lot of time and effort and energy engaging the group. So, asking questions, starting conversations, having conversations with people. And, I will tell you that having a group with good SEO in the name, so search engine optimization, so you know what you’re getting when you join the group.

[00:12:48] It’s Women’s Entrepreneur Network. It’s not the most exotic name, but people know what they’re getting there.

[00:12:57] And because I have at this point engagement in the group, Facebook also recommends the group to grow it. So it’s one of those things where I haven’t had to put as much effort and energy into the group. Once I got past the 1500 to 2000 member mark, it grows itself because I’m always putting content and making a point of engaging people in the group.

[00:13:22] And in fact, right now I’m actually redoing a ton of graphics. You probably heard me confessing last night that I wanted to poke my eyes out because I’m literally generating thousands of graphics. My team and I are scheduling thousands of posts for engagement purposes on our social media.

[00:13:44] Caterina Rando: You are so impressive. Okay, now notice everyone Haley said, her and her team. One of the things that I know is that Haley has a great team and she has attention on team. Because as for all of you listening, The highest and best use of her time is strategy, selling, talking to her clients, et cetera, because those are things that only she, my friend can do.

[00:14:19] Okay. So first of all, that’s a lot of heavy lifting to have your group thrive. I know I cannot do all of that myself. You’re motivating me though to do more. You’re motivating me to do more.

[00:14:32] And let’s talk a little bit about, you have a great community of women with your women entrepreneur network. A lot of great gals. Tell me how do you keep them engaged? Say a little bit about all of that?

[00:14:49] Haley Gray: So we do a lot of different things. It’s not any one thing. So, you know, at a bare minimum, what I see a lot of people who have Facebook groups fail at is not starting conversations intentionally with their community.

[00:15:10] So we do polls, we do quizzes, we do questions, we post many times a day. Anywhere between 5 and 15, 20 times a day depending on what we’re doing.

[00:15:22] So when I say thousands of graphics, there’s a reason for thousands of graphics. The other thing is that we are doing challenges and networking opportunities.

[00:15:33] And I actually partner with people to offer more services thanI could easily provide alone in my group. So I’ve partnered with Caterina on some things. I’ve partnered with Pam Meister on providing a co working space, a virtual co working space called “the zone” and being one of the experts in that community. So i’m joining the two communities.

[00:15:57] I’ve partnered with a number of people to provide additional services, you know networking, All kinds of stuff, online business listings the ability to go live in the group that lots of things that we do That either we provide or one of our partners provides.

[00:16:13] So it’s thoughtful and intentional and making a point of doing things for our members.

[00:16:21] Caterina Rando: That’s wonderful. You’re providing massive value. You’re providing more than that what they would expect from a group when you say networking and co working time. You also have done many virtual events with multiple speakers to get more engagement. I love all of this. You are so brilliant at the marketing and the engagement.

[00:16:42] My friend, You know we have to talk about your branding cruise coming up. Now I want to hear a little bit about it, but really, you know, me, I love cruising, I love retreats and, and trainings on cruise ships because nobody can come late, nobody can leave early, and they tend to be stuck together with their own group.

[00:17:06] Why did you decide to do your branding cruise?

[00:17:12] Haley Gray: I would like to think that most people are joining a program because they want some of the value at least out of the program and One of the things that we’re doing with this cruise in september.

[00:17:25] It’s a brand strategy cruise. So this whole year we’re working on elevating particular aspects of your brand and your strategy in your business And then on the cruise, we’re actually bringing a photographer and a videographer and we are doing photo shoots in a variety of different scenarios to make sure that you’ve got the photos that you need for your social media or, you know, all of the stuff that you do for your branding, for your website, for your branding, for all of the things, and then doing branding.

[00:18:00] A speaker reel for each person because one of the things I have found is that it is really, really hard to get a recording of yourself speaking on a stage in front of an audience and just try getting a video of yourself speaking anywhere that you’ve done paid or unpaid speaking and doing your speech.

[00:18:23] So. We’re going to be talking about exactly what that speaker reel should be so that it fits in your brand strategy. Because, like, the whole book thing earlier, it’s great to have a video of yourself speaking, but if it doesn’t speak to your audience and what you’re trying to do and where you’re trying to go, what’s the point?

[00:18:42] Caterina Rando: My friend, I love this because, you know, having been around for a long time with speaking, I remember one day I hired the videographer to come video my speech. And it was a great group and a great speech. And, and there was this fly that kept right all over, right in front of me the whole time. It was very distracting. Well, it wasn’t only distracting. It was obvious, could not use the video.

[00:19:06] And I remember another time I hired a guy, I had a big audience, had 300 people. I flew the guy in so that I could get myself speaking for the big audience. This place looked like a church basement. There was pillars all over. They had crate paper. It looked like it was the most unappealing venue situation. And, and he couldn’t get anywhere near me, so he’s shooting me from the side.

[00:19:35] It was terrible. Lot of money down the drain. So I am blissing that we are going to get a speaker reel on your upcoming cruise.

[00:19:46] Bing, bing, bing!

[00:19:48] Haley Gray: Well, and the cool thing is we can retake that video as many times as we need to to get what we need because the videographer is going to be there on the cruise.

[00:19:58] So, doing this, we can copy paste if we have to, or we can start over again if we have to. So we’ve got great opportunities.

[00:20:06] Caterina Rando: I am super looking forward to it. You know, Haley, the other thing I want to say related to this. People really don’t recognize this, part of the value that we deliver when we have retreats, when we have your branding strategy cruise, is the opportunity to get together with other phenomenal entrepreneurs and talk about stuff.

[00:20:34] me when we did our Thrive with Retreats retreat earlier in the year. And as you know, I scheduled 90 minutes for mastermind time and we were there seven and a half hours later. Because all the ladies, that’s what they, all they want to do.

[00:20:52] Haley Gray: You could not get us out of your room.

[00:20:55] Caterina Rando: It was so fun. I loved it. The whole bed was full of plates from room service because we didn’t even go to dinner that night because we’re having so much fun. Masterminding and sharing ideas.

[00:21:07] By the way, let me say this is masterminding is something I’m not hearing a lot about these days. Of course it, it comes and goes, but my point is whatever programming somebody is offering listener, I’m talking to you, whatever program you’re offering, make sure you have some mastermind time in there.

[00:21:27] Haley, we got a lifetime supply of things to talk about. I look forward to all the time we have together this year to do all that talking about different things. You are such a a wise person, a great marketing strategist, a resource. Let’s tell our listeners how they can connect with you.

[00:21:51] Haley Gray: Sure. My name is Haley Lynn Gray. So you can find me by Googling me and you can also find women’sentrepreneurnetwork.Org is the website for the Facebook group. My business website is in2itivebiz.com. And we, you know, really just focus on helping people. You can cyberstalk me on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on whatever platform you want. And see who I am as a person. You can look at my YouTube videos for women’s entrepreneur network or myself.

[00:22:29] And, get to kind of know me, you know, find out if I’m actually a real person or not.

[00:22:35] Caterina Rando: My friend, you are such a real person. I know this because we have gone to afternoon tea on a cruise ship with butterfly headgear together and had a great time amongst many other amazing adventures we’ve had.

[00:22:51] And I know there’s many more to come.

[00:22:52] Haley Gray: Hang around me for a little while and I’ll get you into all sorts of stuff.

[00:22:55] Caterina Rando: Yes, I look forward to it.

[00:22:57] My friends, Haley has given you so much to think about today. I want you not only to say, hey, that was Some interesting ideas. I want you to take some action. I want you to join her women entrepreneur network Facebook group so you can see how she does her thing and you can take some of those ideas for you. And Hey, you may want to join Haley and myself for one of our monthly free virtual interactive workshops.

[00:23:28] Bing, bing, bing! Love to you all. Remember, you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. By the way, if you have not checked out Thriving Women in Business Facebook group please do. This is Caterina Rando telling you, go, be yourself, do your thing, serve your people, and Massively monetize your mastery so you can build your fempire.

[00:23:52] Bing, bing, bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.