Ep 96: Effortless Marketing for Busy B2B Founders

Click here to fill out the no-obligation application to work with me.

What if you could revolutionize your B2B service marketing without spending a dime? Join me, Sarah Noelle Block, as I share the Lean Marketing Engine Masterclass—a no-nonsense framework specifically crafted for busy B2B service founders who juggle their own marketing despite lacking expertise or enthusiasm. This episode breaks down a six-step system designed to integrate seamlessly into your hectic schedule, focusing on building profitable relationships through referrals, networking, and business development. From pinpointing your dream client to creating a signature offer, we'll cover how to streamline your efforts across one main social media channel, one core content piece, two lead generators, and a gateway offer. You'll learn how to repurpose content and apply trust-building strategies to attract your ideal clients and surpass common marketing challenges like low visibility and pricing objections.

Simplify your client decision-making process by developing a clear, single signature offer and explore the flexibility of creating upsell and downsell options, as well as the power of micro offers to draw clients into your ecosystem. We’ll highlight the importance of concentrating on one main marketing channel and sticking to a consistent content schedule to build strong, lasting trust. Discover how to craft an effective gateway offer with high-value, low-cost entry points like audits and workshops that seamlessly transition clients to your signature offer. You'll also gain insights into how these offers can double as critical market research tools, helping you refine your approach for maximum efficiency and client satisfaction. Don't miss out on these invaluable strategies to build a cost-free, efficient marketing engine that transforms your business!

Chapters

• 0:02 Lean Marketing Engine Masterclass
• 12:29 Developing Your Content Strategy
• 27:22 Crafting Your Gateway Offer Strategy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey, this is Sarah Noelle Block and you are listening to Tiny Marketing. This is the uncut summer series, where you are getting the raw, unfiltered, unedited recordings from our interviews, webinars and workshops. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ridiculousness. This week, I am sharing a masterclass that I did just yesterday. Actually, you're going to learn how to create a lean marketing strategy in six easy steps, and it works even if you have zero marketing department. So I designed this framework especially for B2B services that have founder-led marketing. So you're stuck in this role that you don't really feel comfortable with it, and it's time to get a system in place and make it very strategic and pull in new clients. So I think that you're going to enjoy this one, and make sure to stay to the end when I give you a little special offer. Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining today.

Speaker 1: 1:10

We are getting into my Lean Marketing Engine Now. This is a framework that I designed specifically for you, for B2B service founders who are stuck in a marketing role that feels maybe a little unnatural to them, because you are good at your thing the thing that you started your business for and you have to do marketing, but it's not something that you're passionate about. So the Lean Marketing Engine makes it really simple to build, almost like a friend funnel, because we all know that service businesses. It's all about who, the referrals, it's about networking, it's about business development. So every bit of this lean marketing engine is meant to drive those relationships that will be really profitable for you. Before we get into the content of it, I would love for you to go in the chat and drop your LinkedIn so we can all hang out and be friends. So go ahead and do that. All right, let's get into it. I'm going to share my screen and no, I was better on the side. We'll go right there. That's a good spot for me. All right. So the Lean Marketing Engine is six steps. It's really easy and you're able to do it in the time that you have. So I know that you guys are busy. You don't have a ton of time. So this system is designed to be able to be batched and done in a set amount of time that fits with your client work and everything else that you have to do for your business. It is the system I use for myself and I have used for clients for the past decade. But before we get too deep into that. Who am I? Blockade. But before we get too deep into that, who am I? I am Sarah Noelle Block.

Speaker 1: 3:31

I am a lean marketing consultant, a strategist for B2B service businesses. I host the Tiny Marketing Podcast, so if you aren't listening to it, start listening. Go over to your podcast app and follow it. I spend time on LinkedIn. That's my primary channel and you'll know what a primary channel is by the end of this webinar and I'm the mom of two boys who are sitting right behind me in this room. I help B2B service providers launch and grow a lean, organic, read, no spend marketing engine that makes it really easy to sell.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Every piece of this is meant to bring people into your world through your lead magnets and offer ecosystem and upsell. So everything is designed to upsell to your signature offer. Imagine not having to sell and instead your dream clients are excited to buy from you and they're waiting for you to give them an offer. So, if you're ready, you have one signature offer. You have one main social media channel, one core content, two lead generators and one gateway offer. Now that might seem like a lot, but here's the thing your core content here can be a hybrid and also be a lead generator. Your core content can also feed your social media channels. So, while it might look like a lot, it's actually not, because we are repurposing a lot of stuff. So this is for you.

Speaker 1: 5:28

If you can't get prospects on a sales call, you're struggling to network with people. You're getting too many wrong fit leads, you're getting pushback on if you can solve the problem in the first place. If you can't get prospects to notice you, you're lacking visibility and authority, or you're getting objections about your price. All of these things are telling me like, if you are dealing with these things, that is telling me that they don't trust you. But that is what this process does is it gets you that know like trust factor. So people will know who you are because we will increase your visibility. They will. You'll either attract or repel the people that you're working with, because you only want to work with people that you, in your heart, want to work with. That's why you started your business, not so you could work with assholes and trust. You need to earn the trust before they're willing to work with you. So every piece of this earns trust with your dream clients.

Speaker 1: 6:39

Okay, so I'm going to do this slightly backwards, because I actually do the gateway offer first when I'm training people on how to do this, when I'm coaching. But we're going to start with the one dream client first. To make this work, you need to start with one dream client that you want to clone. So think back on the clients that you have loved working with before. Who do you want to replicate, who do you want to work with again? And we're going to build messaging strategies around that. Oh, hello guys, hi, alex. So that is what we do with the One Dream client we decide on who we're going to work with and we create messaging so it feels like we're talking directly to them.

Speaker 1: 7:32

So you might be watching this right now and thinking I don't know who my dream client is, and that's okay. That's perfectly fine Because, honestly, I had my business for years and years before I figured out who my perfect client is, who I served best. But you can do it much faster because I figured out how to fast track determining who your dream client is. What I did is I tested for a long time. I tried the different industries, the different business types that I thought that I would like, and then I started to learn that actually what I do is best when they are in this scenario. So for me it was this works best when they don't have a marketing department. And this works best for B2B service providers, because it's even more important for them to earn trust with their ideal customer than other types of businesses relationships because consultations, strategists, coaches you need that trust in order to get people to say yes, people need to know that you are the expert, so that helps determine who it is. But what you need to know is what do they do when they have a problem? What are their biggest challenges? What do they want their life to look like? So I'm going to give you a little hint here, and in your gateway offer, which we'll get into at the end, you can ask all of these questions. So I highly recommend you sell a lot of gateway offers that are low cost, low ticket, high value offers so you can figure out who your dream client is fast. So screenshot this, because I'm not going to go over all of these questions. I'll give you one minute. Okay, screenshot.

Speaker 1: 9:45

So how else do you find out who your dream client is? Have conversations with them. This is especially helpful when you're launching a new offer. I book so many connection calls when I'm launching a new offer to get their ideas. Do you like this? Would this resonate with you? I survey people, so I'll put just a type form link in my email signature asking people for their advice, or I'll do a poll on social media asking them what makes the most sense for them. So I will ask questions like that to my dream clients all the time.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Another easy way is reviewing your sales transcripts, because they are your sales calls. You're finding out what their goals are. You're finding out what transformation they want. You're finding out what their challenges are. So that will help you too. And only review the sales transcripts of the customers that you really liked working with, because you're just trying to replicate them. One thing I like to do is I look at books that are similar to my offer. So, as an example, like Brand Story or Story Brand is really similar to my offer in that it's simplifying marketing. So what I do is I ask ChatGPT to review, to go through the reviews of StoryBrand book and tell me what people complained about that was missing. So that helped me determine what is it that this particular audience wants and then, as I said, start scheduling connection calls, because the more calls you have with your ideal customer, the easier it will be to determine who exactly that is, and you can get narrower and narrower every single time.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So if you have no idea who your dream client is and you're starting from absolute zero on this, look at what problem you solve better than everybody else and who needs that more than anybody else. What transformation have you helped people go through and who was most affected by that? Which customers got the biggest bang for their buck on that? What challenges would someone need to be going through to need the transformation that you are best at pulling people through? What type of person or business feels the most pain from this challenge and who needs this transformation more than anyone else? The thing like you're going to see a theme here with that, and that's that the lowest hanging fruit are the people that are hurting the most from the pain that you solve. So that is where your dream client is. It's right there.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Next, one signature offer. Direct your dream client to one signature offer to make it super easy for them to understand how to work with you. So I recommend and if you are part, I don't know, I can't see who's on this call right now. But if you are part of the Lean Launch Accelerator, then you know that the one signature offer is the framework of what you do. You probably go through the same structure with every client Identify, name and claim that framework that you're taking people through. It might feel supernatural to you, but to them it doesn't. So putting it in some sort of graphic to make it super easy for people to understand how you're taking them from A to B through that transformation, that will make it a lot easier to sell.

Speaker 1: 13:27

And having one signature offer is like the Schitt's Creek menu. If you're opening up eight pages of a menu, you're just going to pick the easiest thing that you find. Instead, you want it to be super simple for them to say okay, I'm going to do that, so it needs to be signature to you. That's why we start with our framework and you need to start. So start with the framework.

Speaker 1: 13:53

And then the second piece is the structure of your offer. Is it done with you or for you? What makes your process different than other people? Are you taking them through the transformation in a day or are you holding their hand and staying with them for six months or 6 months? What outcomes can your dream client expect by the end of the transformation? And what does the container look like? How long will it be? Is it live or is it asynchronous? Is it a retainer? Are you working with them every month? Is it a project? Are you wrapping up that whole thing in a week? A membership, a program reoccurring project? A membership, a program, reoccurring project? These are all of the pieces you want to look at when you are developing your signature offer. Does this mean you can't have other offers and that is a hell? No, no, that's not it at all. Let me explain.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Your signature offer is the bullseye that you're sending people to. So your signature offer is what you would do, like your revenue projections for the year. So you know how much you need to sell and it is like the mid-level of where you want people to go. It's easy for you to do, it's easy for you to replicate, but you also want to have downsells. Let's say the person that you're working with can't afford your signature offer. Have a downsell version of it. Let's say they need more, they need a bit more than what your signature offer can provide Upsell offer. Then you can have back-end add-ons that like frequently ask services that are needed once you've completed that signature offer, so have those available. I also have micro offers available for people, and micro offers are offers that are less than $100 that pull people into your offer ecosystem. So they should play nice with your signature offer and make sense for them to eventually upsell into it. But that's likely a longer sales cycle, so it's pulling people through a little bit at a time. So micro offers can look like digital products. It could look like a training or a masterclass, something like that.

Speaker 1: 16:12

Next up is one main channel. So, despite what you hear, you don't need to be everywhere. You don't need to show up in all the places, so I choose one main channel. For me, it's LinkedIn, and then I have captured my username on all of the other channels, but I'm directing them back towards LinkedIn. So instead you want to lock in your accounts on all of those others because that gives you SEO juice, that gives you more of the Google first page. When you have those in and you don't like, one day you might decide Instagram is better for you. So you don't want to not have your username available to you and then use your pinned posts to do three things Tell them what you do and who you do it for. Take them to your lead generator and tell them where you spend your time online. So use your pin post to drive people to the places that you're actually spending time.

Speaker 1: 17:17

So the reason that I recommend one main channel is you're spreading yourself too thin. If you are the founder of your service business and you're also the marketer, you don't have time to be doing an amazing job on every channel. So just pick one one that you know your customers are spending time on. It'll be impossible for you to build community if you're spreading yourself too thin. So you need to be somewhere where you have those watering holes that you're able to spend time, and it doesn't even necessarily need to be a social media channel, it could be a community. Like, I am in a ton of Slack communities, circle communities, and those are great watering holes where I get clients regularly. And third, the third reason you should only have one channel is you won't spend enough time on any of those platforms to understand how the algorithm works or build relationships with people, so it's easier to just set a routine for that one channel. So if you guys are B2B service businesses, I recommend LinkedIn for that.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Next up is one core content. So choose one core content which would be episodic in nature, and a cadence that you can commit to. So you don't need to create content every week just because I do. You can create it once a month, once a quarter. It depends on what kind of content you're creating. Pick something that works for you and your life and your customers, but you need to show up when you say you will. So pick that cadence and stick to it. If you say you're going to post a blog every week and then it ends up being every three months, you're going to lose trust with your customer because you're telling them I don't do what I say I'm going to do. And second, you need that core content so you can teach them something valuable and gain that trust. And again, I'm going to go back to the beginning, that your core content can be repurposed across the board so it can feed your social media channels, it can feed your email.

Speaker 1: 19:37

So if you are listening to this right now and you're thinking I don't have time for that, that's cute, sarah, I love that. You think I can do this, but I can't. You can and I'll explain why. So one it's completely custom to you. You're choosing a cadence that works for you, one it's completely custom to you. You're choosing a cadence that works for you, even if that's not that often. Choose a core content that works, with a cadence that you can stick to. So if you can only do once a month, then maybe choose a webinar series instead, or choose hosting a networking event instead, and if you can do it every week, then an episodic type of content like a podcast or a video show could be better for you.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Use the theme day method. So I am huge on batching during theme days. So I have my Monday morning marketing, where I spend my Mondays doing all of my marketing for the week and for people that are part of the tiny marketing club we do once a month. We batch our entire month of marketing and then next you want to double up on the work that you're doing. So interview-style content like podcast shows, video shows, panels, roundtables that also gives you biz dev. You're building profitable relationships when you do interview-style content, so that helps a lot.

Speaker 1: 21:09

And have everything work together so you're not creating something that's just a standalone. Everything work together so you're not creating something that's just a standalone. Everything that I do is a social media post is an email is turned into a bundle. I don't ever do something and have it be one thing Never. And it doesn't have to take as much time as you think if that's what you're thinking right now. So these are your four options. I have a four C method for content creation and you can choose one or the other. You can just choose one of these. So core content is what I call my episodic or series content that you're committing to doing on a regular basis like a podcast. And then we have campaign content.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So let's say, you're launching a new offer. You can batch create your content around that offer. So it could be like a blog series around objections, the transformations people can expect, maybe a podcast about limiting beliefs around your offer. So this is a batched creating content around a specific offer. It would be considered like pre-launch content, collab content.

Speaker 1: 22:27

This is where I recommend everybody starts is collab content, so that's co-creating content with someone else to borrow their audience. So you're borrowing each other's audiences. You're expanding the amount of eyes on your content and you. So an example of this could be hosting a webinar with a guest speaker and then you guest speak to their community. Start there and then last is curated content, and this is perfect for people who don't have time to do pretty much anything. You are bogged down. Curated content is curating other people's content into podcast playlists, into guides, into a YouTube channel where you're curating a list, to a YouTube channel where you're curating a list. So that's what that can look like and that would only take a couple hours and it's valuable still.

Speaker 1: 23:22

So my recommendation is collab content in a hybrid option. So this is where you start Collaborative hybrid content. So this is when you're bringing in other experts and you're collabing on the content. But it's also a lead magnet, so you want it to be. So it could be a webinar, it could be a workshop, a private podcast, virtual summits, audio summits, panels, networking events, roundtables these are all things that would be gated. So someone needs to submit their email in order to attend or consume that content. So you're getting email addresses from it and, because we're doing this in a collaborative nature, you're also getting biz dev from it. You're building relationships with people who can send you referrals. So that is my recommendation on where you start.

Speaker 1: 24:23

All right, we are on the fifth piece of the marketing engine, and that is two lead generators. So choose a lead generator type that plays well with your core content. So you're constantly guiding your content fans to the lead generator. It needs to make sense, it needs to lead into your offer, it needs to lead into your gateway offer, all of it. So why two?

Speaker 1: 24:48

Here's why you want one that's passive and one that's active. So the passive lead generator is always on. So this can look like a quiz, a PDF, a template, a bundle, a private podcast, a guide, a mini course. As you can see, all of these can just be downloaded. You can just get digital access and you're good to go. So it can pop up on your website, it can be in your email signature, it can just always be working for you. And a passive one just drips clients in a little at a webinar, a workshop, a summit, an audio summit roundtable. These are time-sensitive, they're only available for a limited amount of time and that brings in new leads like a flood. So you want to use the combination. You want the always-on dripping-in new leads and you want to have active ones, and you could shoot for once a quarter, even once a year if it's big enough. On the time-sensitive ones, I do them every six weeks, though, just because I like it, I like hosting them.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Now I mentioned earlier that your core content should play well with your lead generators. So let me tell you quickly about my signature series strategy and, by the way, if you haven't already signed up for my podcast funnel, that's where I'm getting into this. So if you go to eventssarahnoelblockcom, you can sign up for my podcast funnel masterclass, because that's where I'm digging into this, but basically what it is creating a series on your core content. So for me it's my podcast and I'm driving people to my time-sensitive lead magnet in that signature series. So I have that series and let's say it's 3 to 5 episodes around the same topic and it's driving them to a related time-sensitive lead magnet. So something like a masterclass or maybe a bundle of masterclasses with the guests that you had on during that series. But this is a great way to convert your listeners to subscribers and bring that relationship a little bit more intimate.

Speaker 1: 27:22

The last piece is your one gateway offer. So this is a high-value, low-cost entry point to working with you so you can earn trust. So I mentioned micro offers earlier. The micro offers are less than $100 and they bring people into your ecosystem and that's their goal is just to bring people into your offer ecosystem, get them to experience what it's like to work with you. The gateway offer has a whole other job, and that job is to upsell to your signature offer. So how do you pick one?

Speaker 1: 28:02

What is easy for you to replicate is the first thing to look at, because you're going to do a lot of these. Is there a part of your offer that you can break off and complete as a standalone, and what is something your dream client needs to be prepared for before working with you on that signature offer? So those are a few of the pieces that you need to look at. I have a gateway challenge that you guys can access at the end of this. That will dig in even deeper on that. It explains Well. By the end of it, you'll have your gateway offer launched. You'll know how to sell it. You'll have all the templates that you need to sell it. You'll know how to upsell from it. It's amazing, but this is where you start. What's easy to replicate? You need it to be somewhat templatized and then you customize that template.

Speaker 1: 28:54

What can be broken off that you need to do, like the discovery piece of your signature offer, and then is there any homework that you have your client do before your signature offer? Let's say you're a website designer and they need to complete their copywriting before working with you. You can have a gateway offer where they're doing that like a prep for their website. So these can look like audits, workshops, strategies, plans, reports, analysis, brief surveys, assessments. It can look like a ton of things, but you want them to have a basic structure. It can look like a ton of things, but you want them to have a basic structure.

Speaker 1: 29:36

First. You want them to mirror the experience that they would get within your signature offer. That's really important because it gets people prepared to work with you. On that bigger offer, you want it to have an interview or a workshop component, something that's face-to-face. Have an interview or a workshop component, something that's face-to-face, so you can earn that no and aspect of no trust because they'll start to vibe with you. They'll see your personality, they'll understand what it's like to work with you and that'll give them a taste of what it's like to work with you. You also want it to have a documentation piece, so they need to have something tangible to hold on to that they would be able to execute themselves if they wanted to.

Speaker 1: 30:16

And then, last, you want to have a review, a live review element, and this is the place where you upsell to your signature offer. So the goal of your gateway offer is to earn their trust, understand the scope of what they'll need in the future and upsell them to the signature offer. So when a gateway offer is done right, you are getting market research. You're finding out where they're spending time online, what communities they're part of, but you're also understanding their challenges, their goals, the entire scope of what they'll need, and you can make strategic suggestions what they need to do now and form your initial project around that. But also what can you upsell down the road that they will need six months from now. The gateway offer is powerful and I don't work with anyone until they go through that process, because it helps me customize exactly what they need. Once you've completed enough gateway offers, you can circle back to the beginning of this process and refine everything Now.

Speaker 1: 31:25

I mentioned that your gateway offer is like a chance for you to get paid to do some market research on top of all the other benefits, but this is the engine that we're going through. Your gateway offer will also tell you who your dream client is. The more gateway offers that you do, the better you're going to get at understanding who you are serving best. You can define who your dream client is and you'll understand what they want from your signature offer so you can tweak according to what they need. One thing I always recommend is, during the review session of your gateway offer, ask them the pros and cons of that moving forward section where you're explaining how you would execute it, and then you can really refine what your signature offer should look like. What do they like and what do they not like, and you can address those objections right there on the spot. You'll know what channels they spend time on, so you know exactly what social media makes sense for you. You'll know the core content you need to create and what you need to be teaching in order to attract your dream clients, and what lead magnets will make sense to feed your gateway offer, your signature offer, and would work well with your core content and main channel.

Speaker 1: 32:49

So you are making the. You're not guessing. Guesswork is gone. Guesswork is eliminated with this process. They are telling you exactly what you need to create during this entire process, so everything works together.

Speaker 1: 33:03

I recommend you do every piece of this because it will help you. These are just some of the people who have gone through this process with me. These are all actually people who have gone through the gateway offer process. So while I'm talking to you about this, you're thinking, oh, this is perfect for me, this will help me upsell, this will help me understand my market better, and all of that is true, but it helps your clients so freaking much because they are getting a strategic roadmap on how to solve their problems. So it's valuable to you, but it's valuable to them too.

Speaker 1: 33:42

All right, let's see, I am going to go to the chat and see what kind of questions you guys have. So sometimes marketers will suddenly find they are the only one left in their department or the only one who can make content, and the other person is the technical person. These are helpful tips, thank you, and let me tell you what. I have always been a one-person marketing department, so I know exactly what you mean, and if you're an internal marketer and that's the experience you're in you can do these gateway offer interviews with your clients. Your clients are your internal employees, and that will also help you create the content that you need. So that's something that I do. All the time. I interview internal stakeholders and they drive the content I'm creating. So sure I need to do the creating, but I'm getting their technical brains for it.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Okay, I lost my mouse for a second. I was like where are you? Okay, if you are interested in working with me one-on-one to build your lean marketing engine, you can apply for that. Go to sarahnoelblockcom application. It's no obligation.

Speaker 1: 35:02

So sign up for the application and that does not mean that you have to work with me. That just means that you're raising your hand and you're telling me you're interested in working with me and I'll tell you yay, if it makes sense for you or not, I might direct you to someone else altogether, I might direct you to a different offer. But the point is, if you do this, you're raising your hand, you're saying, yes, I want to build a lean marketing engine and once you submit your application, you will be redirected to the gateway offer masterclass actually and you'll be able to grab the gateway offer challenge. So if a gateway offer sounds really interested to you and you're like, hell, yes, I think this would solve my problems, because it probably would If you are sending out proposals and you're getting ghosted, if you are getting people who are just price shopping and having sales calls with you because of that. This will solve those problems that won't happen anymore with your gateway offer problems that won't happen anymore with your gateway offer. So apply to work with me and you will also get access to the gateway offer masterclass and you'll be able to join the gateway offer challenge from that thank you page.

Speaker 1: 36:22

If anybody has any questions, let me know in the comments. Thank you again so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review, but, most importantly, tell your friends. Share this episode with a friend so other people know about Tiny Marketing and our Uncut Summer Series. I will see you next week with another great one.