Tara Newman: Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Bold Money Revolution Podcast. I am here with a dear friend and I am so excited to be having this chat with my friend, Tamika Auwai. We are talking about nurture marketing because that is the genius of Tamika. Tamika, can you share with folks what you do and who you do it for?
Tamika Auwai: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I’m so stoked that we finally get to have this conversation for other people to hear, because we have a history of always having these really fantastic conversations and I appreciate that about you. I am the CEO of Orisha Creative. We are a nurture marketing agency that serves coaches, mentors, teachers, and coaching adjacent fields. What we really do, Tara, when I talk about nurture marketing, we help coaches to pre-sell their programs with a very proprietary framework that we use called The Nurture Matrix. We help them to craft a 90-day nurture sequence that rolls across email and social media that turns more of their new leads into clients. We do it in a way that means that they don’t have to create new stuff all the time. We like to talk about getting them off the content-creation treadmill while we do this. The big promise is we’re going to pre-sell those programs, have them sold out months in advance, have people ready to step into your launch already ready to buy, already with credit card in hand, and we’ll do it in a way that keeps you from cranking out new content all the darn time.
Tara Newman: Yeah. I really love, and we were saying this before we hit record, that I love how specific you are around nurture marketing because there are lots of different kinds of marketing and I think I’m a huge proponent of the nurture phase of selling. There are seven basic sales steps, one of them is nurture and it’s always in this one spot in this wheel and I’m like, “No, no, no. It is from the beginning, it’s not like a space in the wheel, it is an ongoing part of the process.” I love that you’re repurposing because the main reason why I really enjoy podcasting, but also email, is because you can repurpose, automate, and create sequences where you’re not having to do all the heavy lifting all the time.
Tamika Auwai: Absolutely. You’re not doing all the heavy lifting and you can trust, rest assured that you have a really thoughtful intentional flow for your new leads to move through to have them become ready to work with you. That is of service to your business, obviously, because again, you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. That’s also of high service to the people that you raise your hand and say you want to help. If you’re not actually helping them move along their buyer’s journey and become ready to work with you so that they can step in and have whatever transformation it is that you offer, then what are we really doing here?
Tara Newman: Exactly. You were talking about content that requires a business outcome when we were chatting before, and this is so important because I get a lot of folks that come to me and they’re like, “If I just had the perfect social media strategy,” whatever, I’m like, “Well, those are tools, and we’re not teaching people process, we’re teaching tools before process, and therefore we don’t know why we’re creating the content, why are we using maybe a specific social media platform versus maybe a webinar versus maybe a podcast, why are we doing all the things that we’re doing?” So having that content within a particular business outcome instead of just saying and spraying it.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. You find yourself, if you are someone who’s sitting and thinking about, “Oh, yeah, I’m always busy creating content,” ask yourself why, what are you actually trying to achieve? You need to go deeper than, “Well, I’m trying to sell programs.” Yes, of course, that’s everybody if we’re in business, we’re in business to make sales, but with the specific tools, what is the outcome that you’re trying to create within those tools? We really need to dive deeper and get really intentional. What do we want the ideal client to do next?
Tara Newman: Yeah. How can we help them make a decision whether this is for them or not for them. Basically, all of my content, in my opinion, is around how can I help this person make a decision about whether or not this is the right thing for them at this time?
Tamika Auwai: Exactly.
Tara Newman: What are you seeing, what’s working right now? I know that you just did a series on old school marketing versus new school. What trends are you seeing?
Tamika Auwai: I think the biggest trend that I see is that gone are the days when you could really rely on the, I’m going to use the old school marketing online marketing funnel, that you could rely on a 15-day sequence that would result in people booking a call or buying a program or whatever else. That used to be the primary way, the whole sequence of you offer up a freebie, then they get on your list, they get a couple little welcome emails, then we get into attend the sales webinar or book the sales call, and then we email them about that outcome for seven, ten, or whatever number of days, and then expect that they would take action. We used to do that and we might see 20%, 25%, people would take you up on the offer but that doesn’t work anymore.
We were talking about it, Tara, folks are much more discerning. They’re more discerning first of all, second of all, especially if you’re in the coaching, mentoring, teaching space, that industry in itself has exploded. It’s saturated. I don’t know if it’s saturated yet, this is where my little woo-woo self comes in and I still believe there are more than enough clients for every single coach out there even though we’ve got 60 million, trillion coaches and coaches who coach coaches, and all of that, so maybe there’s a little bit of saturation but the higher self wants to say, “Okay, yeah, there’s enough for everybody.” But certainly, what it means is that for any given coach, your ideal clients got options. Gone are the days when you’d be the only person sending out a freebie about a particular topic.
I remember when the premium-priced model was out there, a handful of coaches were talking about selling high ticket way back in the day back, a handful of coaches talking about that, and so I remember being a newer business owner and it’s like, “Ooh, we got this freebie,” and it was so exciting, but there were only a handful of mentors really teaching this. If you think 10 years ago, 12 years ago, something like that, so you look okay, these couple of mentors, I know who I resonate with and I move through. Now, that is double, triple, quadruple, so on and so forth. Your little itty bitty 15-day sequence now, that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the dozens of mentors that will come across their field. Certainly, social media and the way that algorithms work is that anytime you look for a coach in one particular area, you’re going to be flooded with other coaches who do the same thing. You’ve got to remember that your audience got options. They’re more discerning, and so that little 15-day sequence, we were talking about this earlier too, maybe you could say 15% will be ready to buy when they opt into your world. I think it’s much fewer. I think from what I’m seeing in terms of what’s working and what’s not, what my clients are seeing, it’s more like 2% to 5% are ready to buy.
What that means is that you can’t rely on that old school funnel and instead, what’s really working is considering and remembering that what’s really needed is that deep nurture, what’s really needed is an extended funnel beyond that first 15 days. That first 15 days is nothing, you really want to look at nurturing people over a 60, 90 day period, sometimes even six month period, depending on the industry. You really want to consider nurturing them over this longer period. The other thing that’s used to work that is no longer working is that what nurture actually means has had to get very, very specific because again, gone are the days where we could just “I’m nurturing by making content available. I’m nurturing by being consistent on social. I’m nurturing by having a how-to video on YouTube published every week.” That no longer is going to cut it.
Now what’s working is that we’ve got to get really intentional, really clear first about our ideal clients about the buyer’s journey that they’re moving through, about the experience that they’re having psychologically and emotionally as they make the decision to work with somebody around solving their problem. We need to get really clear on what that is and we need to provide content that is designed to move them along their buyer’s journey over that 60-day, 90-day, maybe even six-month mark. When we do that really intentionally, what it means is sometimes they actually are ready earlier. That’s the only way that I’m seeing. If we’re thinking about the old school funnel not really working, the only thing that I’m seeing that’s actually shortening it just a bit is by putting this really intentional content out there and moving people along their buyer’s journey so that they lean in, they raise their hand earlier. That’s it.
Tara Newman: Yeah. I think the two things that I’m specifically seeing working right now is how specific can you be about your best fit clients? How can you find where they’re being underserved, and specifically speaking, to those points in their journey? That takes building relationships, that takes having conversations with people, that takes listening. When you tell me, “I’m a big proponent of still having sales calls as a conversion mechanism,” and do I convert some people by email? Do some people just show up and they click on my link and buy because I’ve done a good job nurturing them through the podcast, through the email? Sure. But I want to talk to folks. I want to hear what’s going on for them. I want to better educate myself in what’s pressing on top of mind for these people that I care about and that I want to be serving and supporting. We’re doing what people are doing away with that. Oh, well, sales calls aren’t cool anymore and talking to people isn’t cool anymore. We just want them to click on the link and buy, but it’s not that it’s not cool, it’s that you’re uncomfortable doing it.
Tamika Auwai: You’re uncomfortable doing it and you’re ineffective at doing it. Because what I do appreciate is drawing the line in the sand and saying “I’m not available to have just about an hour on a sales call or 90 minutes on a sales call.” I’m speaking particularly in the coaching industry. There are some coaches that their sales calls turn into coaching. This is why our conversations are so good because we can do that and it can still be a really great conversation. But the sales call story becomes a coaching call.
Tara Newman: Correct, because a sales call is not a coaching call and there are people who are teaching people to coach. Because they’re teaching the old school, throw an ad out there, and get very cold traffic, have zero nurture, and now you’re nurturing them on a sales call from a PM in a Facebook group. This is a very cold person and now you’re warming them up, you’re nurturing them on the actual sales call. That’s not what you should be doing. When you’re nurturing people the way Tamika teaches you how to do it and the way I do it, is by the time they get on a call with you, they are ready to hand you money.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. When we have sales calls within the agency, we’re basically already talking about what’s going to happen next. They’re literally just filling me in on where they’re at, what’s going on for them right now.
Tara Newman: Are you a real human being? I just want to make sure you’re the same person you are on your podcast.
Tamika Auwai: Yeah. It’s an energy read and at maximum, it’s a 30-minute conversation. But again, it’s not a sales call. It’s like, “Let’s make sure we like each other.” We do this by, again, we have really effective nurture in place and of course, and I know that you do this too, there’s just some really smart things you do to have someone step into a sales call ready to buy, number one, what are your prices, what’s the offer? We give all that stuff in advance too. I know your prices are available so people aren’t coming in with the big “What is this thing?” They know what they’re buying. We’re having the conversation to see if you’re a fit.
Tara Newman: Because I think that your nurture content should help people identify if they are ready for what you’re actually selling. Then if you want them to be able to identify if they are ready, you need to be transparent about what you’re doing.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. You need to be transparent. I think the other piece that you need to be doing is that you need to be ensuring that they are—again, I believe so much in the psychology of buying and being mentally prepared to buy—so in order to do that, you want to be ensuring that they understand what they have been doing previously to solve their problem that isn’t working, what are they believing about their problem that is not supportive of stepping into transformation. Yes, okay, there might be objections but I’m not talking about massive belief shifting on a sales call, you’re not going to massively shift someone’s beliefs on a sales call. If they need to have their brains oriented a certain way in order to be able to be aligned to work with you, I’m not talking about being manipulative, I’m just talking about ensuring that they have their perspective shifted so that they can see why your solution might be the most supportive approach for them, so they can see why the other ways that they might have attempted to solve the problem before might not have worked, that’s what I’m talking about. They need to have had that experience before they step into the sales call.
Tara Newman: That happens in your nurture content.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly.
Tara Newman: My objections get handled in my nurture content.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. When you make that invitation for them to step in a sales call or if it’s the click the button, whatever your particular flavor is, they need to have had that whole process before. The sales call is not the place for that. Yes, if you think about old school sales pages, they’re intended to do some of that too, but that’s a big ask. In this day, in this climate, it’s a big ask. I’m curious who’s still doing long-form sales pages? I think people are but I wonder if they really work. I’m curious.
Tara Newman: I don’t like long-form sales pages, I typically don’t ever have a cohesive sales page. It’s my content, it’s the podcast, it’s my email, it’s get on a call with me because I just tend to not be able to keep up with it but also people don’t read it. I get people on sales calls to me and they’re asking me questions that I’ve addressed maybe in the sales page, which is fine but we’re not reading sales pages. I’m reading long-form content but I’m not reading sales pages.
Tamika Auwai: Correct. Before we have sales calls, we give out our overview of what it looks like to work with us. It’s a PDF, nothing fancy and it’s 16 pages long. People read the hell out of that and they send us emails saying “Thank you so much for explaining what it is.” Again, with our done-for-you work, it’s like a seven-month process and they really want to understand what it’s going to look like for them and their team and everything else. But I’m telling you, if that was a sales page and I was using that to sell, that wouldn’t do it. But because of everything we’ve set up beforehand, they receive this “Oh, this is what it looks like to work with us,” all 16 pages of it. They’re like, “Yeah, that was great. I read it over tea and I’m so excited to talk,” yes, I just want to share, again, not even I want to ask about, it’s yes, and I just want to share what we’re up to so that you’re aware to just make sure that that’s kept in mind while we’re moving forward. That’s what the sales process looks like, that’s what the pre-sold experience looks like.
Tara Newman: Yeah. It’s really interesting because I can’t think of the last time I bought from a sales page.
Tamika Auwai: Oh no.
Tara Newman: If I find someone who’s talking about something that I’m interested in, I get on their email list actually and then I allow them to talk to me and nurture me and then I see what their offers are and then I decide whether I’m going to work with them.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. I’ll do the same thing. I’ll get on their email list and then I’ll be activated to see what they’re posting on social. I know a lot of folks who’ve given way of Facebook for Instagram, I still hang on Facebook a little bit and I’m one of those people who will read a long ass Facebook post that’s really well written, that speaks exactly to my problem, what’s going on, and gives me that “Oh, never thought about it that way,” those are the things that have me lean in, that’s very similar to the content that we create in our process in The Nurture Matrix, but that’s what has me leaning in. It’s like, “Oh, okay, they’re speaking to me exactly what’s going on for me.”
They’re not telling me how to go fix it, that’s the kind of content that we used to talk about the valuable content, it would be like give away your tips and tricks and all that stuff, that’s not value, that, in my view, wastes people’s time because it sends them cycling thinking that they can go fix things by themselves and the truth is they can’t. But when you have content that’s really speaking to what’s going on for you, presents a new perspective or a new possibility around solving your problem, again, you’re solving the problem in the way that only you and your business can do, but that is what has me “Huh, yeah, I will DM this person or I will get on their mailing list because I’m curious now, not because they told me go try these five things but because they had me really reconsider what I had been trying to do to solve the problem.” That for me is the deepest, most efficient nurture that you can do because that’s what’s actually moving me along my buyer’s journey. That how-to content is taking me off the buyer’s journey because it’s letting me think that I can just piecemeal it and figure it out myself.
Tara Newman: What I’m hearing you say, again, specifically talking to you, they know you, they know who their best fit client is, and they’re being very specific and descriptive in how they’re talking to you. They’re positioning themselves so they understand how they uniquely solve the problem or have a different perspective, and they’re inviting you to consider this other perspective.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. They’re super clear on what’s going on for me and they’re presenting another vantage point, another perspective, another way to look at things that’s unique to their body of work for me to take in. When that intersects, when they’ve done such a good job of talking about where I am and what’s going on for me, I can’t help myself, I almost have to listen. Unless I’ve seen them do something that means that we’re just not if, values wise or whatever, I can’t help myself. I’ve said a couple of times with clients when we’re really getting deep into who their ideal client is, I’m like, “We want your ideal client to look around the room and just be like, ‘Do they have a camera in here? Are they watching me right now?’ in a non-creepy loving way for it to feel that resonant.” We can’t help but pay attention to content that’s written in that way.
Tara Newman: Yeah. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the way I see nurture is nurture is a place for me to control the things that I can control. I can’t control when they buy but I want to make sure we believe the same things, that they believe what I believe, and that there’s some values, belief-systems match, that they have the problem that I solve. In highlighting the problem that I solve, being slightly polarizing around the problems that I don’t solve. Correct?
Tamika Auwai: Yeah.
Tara Newman: So we could be perfectly clear. Talking to their personal urgency; is this the right time for you regardless of cart open, cart close, but what is happening for you right now? Why now?
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. Speaking to that internal sense of urgency is the only way that I’ve seen the actual pre-selling the program or having people step in and buy, and again, I’m speaking here to people who do have a cart open, cart close time or have launches in their business. Even thinking about evergreen models, the only way that you can get someone to buy, if you’ve got an evergreen model, is by activating that internal sense of urgency, otherwise, it’s always next month. We see this. We enroll cohorts monthly, we don’t have a “You can only enroll at this time for now.” We have an intake of clients that we work with every single month. We have to really speak to what’s going on for them in this moment that makes now the right perfect time. When we do that, again, no issues, folks are ready to go, they’re ready to step in because they know now is the time for them.
If for some reason now isn’t actually the time for them, they understand enough, they’re nurtured enough to come back around. They always come back around when the time is actually right for them, versus being in this space of, “Yeah, I’ll come back,” and it’s just an empty promise and you never hear from them ever again. I know that happens so often for so many business owners, coaches, etc. They’re like, “They said they were coming back.” They’re not coming back. You’re not even seeing them at the next launch. They’ve checked all the way out. Now they’re hiding from you.
Tara Newman: When we were chatting before we got started, you were talking about the insanity of doing the same thing over and over and sinking money into launches that aren’t working.
Tamika Auwai: Yeah. We can ask ourselves “Do launches really work?” In some businesses, they really do. I’m in some groups with some very established coaches and they have just enough budget, with a lot of budget, to be able to have the launch model work for them. I also believe that a part of the reason the launch model works for them, it’s very tied to who their ideal clients are. But I think there are still audiences where the launch format works. Largely though, what I’m seeing is that tons of folks are spending time, energy, money, attention, blood, sweat, tears, all the things in mastering the launch, meaning they’re trying something different each time because they’re not actually seeing the conversion work. They start out, it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to do the live launch method.” “Okay. I’m super burned out from that. I had a crappy conversion, let me go back to webinars, let me go back to Jeff Walker PLF, let me go back to all these different launch formats.” They keep trying to swap this launch format.
That to me is the definition of insanity where yes, you’re applying a different launch strategy but you’re essentially doing the same thing, you’re doing the same mechanism for filling your programs, which is to go really hard at people for two and a half weeks, have this cart open, cart close. It doesn’t matter what delivery it is, this is where we can talk about the medium or the platform, it doesn’t matter what mechanisms you’re using to enroll people. If what’s happening is that you do this big concentrated effort to get people to step into your programs and they don’t step in, we need to look outside of the launch. It’s so funny because I know there’s someone out there “Well, maybe it was my copy,” because this is the other way we try to fix it. If it’s not the launch strategy we’re using, well maybe it’s the copy, maybe I’ll redo the copy sequences or maybe it’s the offer, I’ll retool the offer, I’ll change the pricing.
Sometimes, the offer is off. Sometimes it is cool. Sometimes the copy is off. All right, cool. But largely what I’m seeing happening is so much launch fatigue, so much launch frustration. Instead of looking away from the launch and thinking to ourselves, “Okay, if this mechanism of waiting till certain points in the calendar year to have this big rah-rah and bring all the people in, if this is not working, instead of trying to replace it with something similar, why don’t we do something completely different?” For me, it’s just such insanity. When I think about what we can do completely different, again, it brings me back to nurture. We spend so much time on this amount of new leads, we spend all this time in lead generation and we spend all this time in our launch cycles and then in the middle of the funnel, we’re just like, “Yeah, we’ll just put out some content. I’ll put out a newsletter. I’ll post some stuff on social. I’ll just keep posting on social,” but again, we’re just doing it to do it and there’s no real intention, there’s no business outcome attached to it.
“I know. I’m doing it to nurture,” but again, you have to take it deeper, what does nurture actually mean? Some folks might say, “Well, it’s maintaining the relationship.” For me, that’s not good enough. In a business, that’s not good enough, that’s not taking me back to the bottom line. In my view, nurture is designed inherently to pre-sell the program so people are ready for the launch or whatever you use in your business to enroll. We don’t love the term launch, we try to convert all of our clients to using the language active enrollment campaign, because over time, when they work with us, the need to rely on a launch in that way dissipates so it gets to be not a launch and instead an active enrollment campaign. But we got to stop relying on the launch, instead, we have to have folks pre-sold before you even start any of your launch or active enrollment campaigns so that they’re stepping in with the card, maybe the card’s not already in hand, but the wallets open.
When you do that, you just can see how much more efficient it is because rather than expecting all these cold leads, essentially cold and your lukewarm leads that you think are warm because you’ve been dashing out whatever kinds of content at them but are not actually moving along their buyer’s journey, they’re checked out. You can know this if you’re someone who’s sending out email regularly and you notice that your open rates are not that great, you notice that your unsubscribes are pretty darn high but they’re checking out, especially after they’ve gone through your initial top of funnel sequence, they’re checking out at a pretty rapid rate and you’ve got what I call the leaky bucket syndrome in your lead gen because they’re coming in and they’re leaking out, whether they’re physically leaving or they’ve stuck you in the promotions folder and never activated you into the main attraction folder. They’re checked all the way out.
You got this leaky bucket and you’re expecting the leads that aren’t really there to be ready to buy or the brand new ones that you brought in just for the launch and we’ve got this self-fulfilling cycle really because now what’s going to happen is those cold leads are in the launch, they’re not ready to buy either. But instead of having an intentional strategy to nurture them, they’re going to dissipate and float away after the launch is over as well, so here we are back to the place of needing more new leads for the next launch, and instead, we want to stop this insanity, stop trying to find a new way to attract better leads and stop trying to find a new way to launch but instead, go back to the middle of the funnel and think if someone’s not ready to buy today, what needs to happen? What is the journey they need to take right with me in order to be ready to buy? That’s what you need to insert into your business. Without that, again, the definition of insanity and you’re wasting a lot of time, energy, attention, and money most of all. You’re wasting a ton of money on this.
Tara Newman: I think that to go back to the point we were talking about before around saturation, I’m with you, I think there’s more than enough clients for the people who want them, but I think that your level of business skill and literacy needs to be coming way, way up in this market. I think you need to think like a business person and not like a coach who wants to help people or inspire people. I know I get a lot about, “Well, I want to be inspirational,” or “I can’t create that because I’m not inspired.” I’m like, “This is not about inspiration or being inspired, that is f*cking false.” I’m sorry if people are disconnecting from this podcast, but it is dangerous for me as a business coach, business strategist to let people believe (A) they can only work when inspired, and (B) that their goal is to inspire people.
Tamika Auwai: Absolutely. The thing that you said earlier is that “I just want to help people”, guess what, helping them to take action to solve a problem that they’ve got is helping them. You can’t help them truly unless they are stepping in and having transformation. When you’re just like, “I want to help people,” but you don’t actually want to help them to step in and work with you, that’s a massive disconnect. You’re not actually helping anyone.
Tara Newman: Yeah. This is really about leadership too, because people are craving to be led. When your people find you regardless of who you are or what you sell, they are most likely confused, frustrated, concerned. They have some, whether you call it pain points, I’m a big fan of Jobs to be Done Theory by Tony Ulwick around what’s the job to be done, a hat tip to my buddy Ross O’Lochlainn for bringing that to my attention. They need something to be done. When they come to you and you’re all over the place because you’re inspired one moment to talk about this and then you’re inspired the next moment to talk about that, all you’re doing is adding to their confusion, frustration, and their inability to get the job done that they need done. You are not leading in that moment. Leading them looks like, “Hi, I’ve got you. I see you. Here’s some empathy. I understand where you’re at because I’m an expert and I work with people like you and I have seen this before, and maybe I’ve been there too. Here’s what you need to do next. Here’s how you can really understand some more details and nuance about the situation you’re in and here’s what you can do about that in terms of what to think about, what to decide on, or what have you,” and you are leading them to making a decision, that is your highest level of service.
Tamika Auwai: Amen. Absolutely. Bang on.
Tara Newman: But when we’re not clear, people will stay stuck where they’re at because we’re adding confusion. I think this person can help me, I’ve seen that they helped this other person, or I know them, this is the other thing that really keeps people stuck in their business is they’ve started a business that leverages their early adopters, an already warmed up audience. Unless they want to keep selling to the same people, they have to expand their audience, they have to expand their reach to get more leads, and when you bring these leads on, the likelihood of them being as warm as these early adopters are pretty much not there. You now need to be very clear in how you’re going to warm these folks up so that they understand who you help and how you help them and when you help them. Because early adopters, we’ve all had them. Early in our businesses where we weren’t as clear, I’ve had people who’ve worked with me just because they knew me or because like, “I just like Tara and her energy. I think she can help me. I think she understands.” But that ship has sailed for me.
Tamika Auwai: Yeah, absolutely. We grew for years just by referral only and didn’t even have a marketing presence. I would joke I would go and speak on a podcast and they’d be like, “Where can you find referrals?” Nowhere, actually because we don’t have time and space to do that right now, and of course, thinking as a business owner, I said, “Okay, well referrals are amazing. We love them, oh my goodness,” and the longevity of this business can’t be sustained and the growth that I desire can’t be sustained by waiting for the next referral to come in and so we start to put things in place and in that process, of course, you understand deeply what nurture marketing means, Tara, but you wouldn’t be surprised how many times I have to just answer “This is what I mean by nurture marketing,” because the term nurture has become something that doesn’t mean anything for a lot of people.
Tara Newman: What do people think it means?
Tamika Auwai: Often what they think is like, “Oh, nurture marketing, well, yeah, I’m nurturing my people.” They think it’s another word for just creating random content, sometimes I think.
Tara Newman: Going back without a business outcome.
Tamika Auwai: Yeah, without a business outcome. They’re intrigued by it, certainly, but a lot of them do think, “I’m nurturing. I post every day on social. I send out an email once a week.”
Tara Newman: When I talk about nurture marketing, I curse GaryVee for this.
Tamika Auwai: That’s exactly it. That’s exactly what happens.
Tara Newman: I’m so glad you’re with me here, but yeah but GaryVee is Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. His jabs are nurture, give, give, give, ask for the sale. Here is the problem, women specifically get stuck in the jabbing, in the nurturing, and then aren’t as comfortable asking for the sale. It’s nurture, nurture, nurture, can I ask now? Maybe, sort of, maybe I need to nurture one more time?
Tamika Auwai: Also, women get stuck in the give, give, give, give, without understanding what is actually supportive to give.
Tara Newman: Correct, so it’s give all of my stuff away, give all of my value away, so women have a hard time—ooh, I love where this is going, who wants to come to a sleepover with me and Tamika?
Tamika Auwai: We are having fun, it’s happening.
Tara Newman: Because Tamika and I have actually done sleepovers.
Tamika Auwai: We have. It’s been fun.
Tara Newman: Now I lost my damn train of thoughts, we were talking about sleepovers. But what were we saying?
Tamika Auwai: We were talking about the fact that women, they over give, they get stuck in the over-giving piece.
Tara Newman: Yes, oh I remember what I was saying. Women get a little bungled up around value, so what is your value that people are going to pay you for, and then you have other value that you can be giving that is valuable that is not what people pay you for. It was actually Danielle LaPorte, who I was listening to, it was a random podcast with Danielle LaPorte and it was so many years ago at this point, I’m going to not quote her properly, but she was saying, the gist was she meets all these heads of state like the Dalai Lama and all these people. I think they were asking her how she stays grounded, interacting with really big names and heads of state, and things like that, and she’s like, “Well, I think about what my value is.” I forgot what she said but she’s like, “I know a little bit about building online communities. I think I’m pretty humorous.” I don’t remember what else she said, but I’m like, oh, I can relate to that because I can bring value in ways like I’ve recommended books, where people were like, “Oh, my gosh, that book changed my life. Thank you for recommending that to me.” It’s built a connection, it’s not me giving away the thing I do. Or we were talking about value and helping them decide.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly. That’s what I was going to say. In my view, the biggest value that you can give to someone who is in a problem or who isn’t in a place—I love that term, I’m going to have to look that up as well, that there’s a job to be done—is helping them to think about their problem in a way that opens them up to actually flip in solving it. That to me is the highest value you can offer someone in your community. Books are great, humor is great, quotes are great, all of those pieces are great, and the biggest value you can give them is helping them to have that shift in perspective around their problems so that they can actually put their freaking foot in front of the other and take some action, get the problem solved, get the job done.
Tara Newman: It’s not coaching, it’s not free training, it’s not how-to, it’s not solving the problem, because this doesn’t help anybody. In my life, there’ll be people who I know personally who I have no interest in them being my client or anything and I’ll be like, “I think you should do A, B, and C.” If they actually took what I said and went and did it, they’d have a tremendous result, but they don’t because it was free.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly, because it was free. Again, going back to our early point, the thing with the “go do this, go do that, here’s some free coaching,” leaves them thinking that they’re solving the problem when they’re not. It leaves them thinking they’re getting the job done when they’re not and it’s actually making them more confused because why aren’t they like, “Oh, I’m doing something about my problem, supposedly, but I’m not actually seeing the outcome of it being solved.” So what gives, it leaves them in frustration. Here comes another coach who understands what we’re talking about, understands how nurturing is really around helping them to understand their problem in a way that allows them to actually solve it, and then off they go with that coach because it’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’m not supposed to be out here trying to solve these five tips that, do these tips and tricks on my own, I actually need to go over here and I need to step in container and I need to have frameworks and processes and whatever your magic is,” but someone else comes in and teaches them how to think about their problem so that they can take the action and get the result. That’s where the clients are going. That’s where they’re going to go.
Tara Newman: Yeah. You don’t realize the value that you have in so many other ways. For example, I do have a lot of clients who sell B2B into other businesses on a specific topic, so maybe like an executive coach. The value that executive coach has is that they’re in multiple different businesses and probably different industries seeing what’s happening with the leadership teams in these areas. What if you did a white paper or had some nurture around this research that you can report on that you’re seeing and people are like, “Oh, wow, that’s not just happening in my company. Oh, wow, this is actually a thing,” and that could be incredibly helpful, or in real estate where it’s like, “Here’s what’s happening in the market right now,” that’s helpful to people who are buying without doing anything for them that you would normally get paid for. It’s like be creative.
Tamika Auwai: Absolutely. We have a case study that we’ll share with folks. It’s not a traditional case study, but walks them through the process of what happens when we insert The Nurture Matrix in the business. We’re not telling them anything about what to do, how to go and solve it.
Tara Newman: Showing them what’s possible.
Tamika Auwai: Exactly, we’re showing them what’s possible, we’re showing them what the process looks like, but that’s valuable for them because in that, they get to understand that what they’ve been doing so far has them working and why and what possibility could look like instead. It’s hugely valuable for them. But it’s not like, “Here’s five steps to go and start to nurture your community.” We don’t do any of that really. We’ve got a workshop but even in that, when we’re sharing, we’re sharing strategic shifts you can make. We’re not saying, “Hey, go do all of these things and you don’t need us anymore.” It’s like, “Here are some things to think about, to think differently about, and if you’d like our help, here’s how we can work together.” That is in service, that is valuable.
Tara Newman: Yeah. We’ve hit a lot of really good points. We hit things that are working, things that aren’t working. We hit don’t keep doing the same thing over and over again if it’s not working.
Tamika Auwai: Please, please don’t.
Tara Newman: We’ve talked about what nurture looks like and why I think GaryVee is terrible and what he shared around Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Is there anything else you feel like we need to leave the listeners with or what’s one last parting?
Tamika Auwai: I think we’ve given a lot and I think the biggest thing to walk away with is if you’ve been nurturing in the way that we’ve been talking about as the antithesis of what you should be doing, let yourself off the hook a little bit, you were doing something, because I know folks who when I say “How are you nurturing your people?” they’re like deer in headlights because they’re not really doing anything. What you’ve been doing so far is absolutely better than nothing and when you know differently, do differently. That’s a Maya Angelou quote for you, “When you know different, do different.” My biggest or final parting of things we want to leave with folks is just take what we’ve shared here and start to think about what is that journey that your ideal client needs to move through? If they’re not ready to buy yet, what do they need to see, hear, feel, know, understand, experience in order to step in and work with you?
Start to really think more strategically around drawing them to that result, start creating content that is more intentional and drawing them to that result. If you need some help, you know where to find us and again, for me it’s like we’re going to shine the light on some things, I want to see some folks take some action. That’s my biggest takeaway. Now that you’ve heard different, you can see in your business where you’ve been maybe giving value in the way that’s not supportive and let’s flip that around and start to give some true value of high service to your business, of high service to your ideal clients.
Tara Newman: Yeah. I’ll build on that and I’ll say if you’re over nurturing or nurturing in a way that is giving away all of your value, know that you’re not alone, know that this gets very entangled with our desire to either help or that we feel responsible or that we have not been taught how to do it differently. A lot of things that you’re reading about nurture and seeing might not be applicable to you. GaryVee can go jab, jab, jab all he freaking wants because he’s got this huge team, they’re following him around, they’re recording him, he’s putting out all this value, he’s making money in other ways. It’s not a fair comparison when you look at that. Most likely, my audience is primarily female, they’re primarily between the ages of 35 and 50ish, they have a life, they have children, they have a partner, they might be having children and a parent that they’re taking care of. We have lives. We’re not here to be followed around with DRock, creating reams of value, of jabbing.
What I love about Tamika is that she’s very clear that she’s talking about nurture. There are a lot of folks out there talking about marketing but they’re not specific in the marketing that they’re talking about. You might think you’re getting the information you need but they’re maybe cutting too wide of a swath in marketing. I think this is one area that has a lot of low-lying fruit for folks. It actually fits really well with things like empathy and care and really some of those more feminine qualities of leadership, emotional intelligence, it’s all here in this nurture, stuff that I think that if women just had a little bit different perspective, they would do really well and it would, one, lead to more revenue but also save more time.
Tamika Auwai: Absolutely. The more you can drill down. To your point about the marketers most marketers having that really wide umbrella, again, it’s just a really easy place for you to get stuck doing a lot extra and again, I’m very much like your clients in your community, Tara, and like you, I got kids, I got dance class to drop people off, to karate to pick them up from and a life outside of my business so I just want to get as efficient as possible and I want to be of service as well. The intersection of that for me is in getting really clear about who your ideal clients are and the messaging that they need to receive to move forward and take action. That can be achieved, again, with really strategic nurture marketing.
Tara Newman: I love when you say that your content requires a business outcome. That’s a big smack in the face. That’s going to be a big smack in the face for some folks. Tell everybody where they can find you, my friend.
Tamika Auwai: For sure. You can find us on the socials at @orishacreative on Facebook and Instagram. If you are curious about nurture marketing and what we’re talking about here, I have a nurture opportunity scorecard that you can go and download for free. It’s just a really easy way that you can go through what you’ve been doing so far and already, and see if there are any gaps or opportunities to shift things in the way that Tara and I have been talking about.
Tara Newman: I love that because what Tamika is doing is she’s helping you assess where you’re at so you know if you need support and if you need help and how she can help you based on the scorecard size.
Tamika Auwai: Yeah, and you can grab that at nurturematrix.com/scorecard.
Tara Newman: Smart move. Love it. Thanks for coming on, Tamika.
Tamika Auwai: My deepest pleasure, my dear.
