110: The Importance of Setting Up a System for Consistent Marketing in Your Creative Business as a Solo Business Owner featuring Tayler Cusick Hollman (The Systems & Workflow Magic Podcast)
The Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast is brought to you by Dolly DeLong Education. This podcast is for creative business owners who want to learn tangible steps to automate their business through workflows, systems, tools, and strategies to go from scattered to streamlined with purpose because even muggles can become automated wizards!
Meet Tayler Cusick-Hollman
A marketing consultant and small-business builder, Tayler is the Founder of Enji—though you might recognize her from one of her other companies: TAYLRD Media and Designs and Sourced Co. In her newest endeavor, Tayler is taking everything she has learned over nearly a decade of helping small businesses with marketing to design and build a suite of online marketing tools that fit your lifestyle and make sense for you. Because, while you didn’t sign up to be the Chief Marketing Officer of your business, at Enji, we believe becoming one doesn’t have to be so daunting—and our goal is to empower you with the tools and solutions you need to make more informed decisions, use your resources more effectively, get creative with how you connect with customers, and ultimately grow.
🧩Interested in getting started with Systems & Workflows For Your Own Business?
🔗Links mentioned: ⭐️The Systems & Workflow Magic Bundle (this comes out at least once a year, and even if you miss it, you should still get on the waitlist to be notified of the next bundle!) (click here or click on the banner below) 
⭐️A private podcast about the 4 different launching phases (here or click on the banner below) 
⭐️A free workshop on how to get started with refining my top 5 recommended systems, workflows, and sops to impact the backend of your own creative business today! Sign up for this free 90-minute workshop and walk away with a game plan of action! 
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🗒️Review the Show Notes
CONNECT WITH TAYLER
- Website: enji.co
- IG:@enji_co
- Brands That Book Podcast (where Dolly originally heard Tayler)! (Tayler’s Episode is here)
CONNECT WITH DOLLY
- Website: https://dollydelongphotography.com/
- IG: https://www.instagram.com/dollydelongeducation/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dollydelong
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dollydelong/
- The Systems & Workflow Magic Podcast: https://www.dollydelongphotography.com/podcast
Want to listen to the other episodes in this series? Check them out here! Start with Episode 105 ⬇️
Episode 105: https://dollydelongphotography.com/2023/11/16/copywriting-tips-for-launching/
Episode 106: https://dollydelongphotography.com/2023/11/25/how-to-use-tiktok-for-launching/
Episode 107: https://dollydelongphotography.com/2023/12/03/easy-launches-during-busy-seasons/
Episode 108: https://dollydelongphotography.com/2023/12/10/how-to-host-a-webinar/
Episode 109: https://dollydelongphotography.com/2023/12/16/how-to-have-a-powerful-pre-launch/
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Read The Shownotes + Transcript Here
Dolly DeLong: Well, hello, and welcome to the systems and workflow magic podcast. I am your systems and workflow BFF and guide Dolly DeLong. And I just want to say, if you are listening to this when this episode airs. Merry Christmas, you filthy animal. And if you’re listening to this in a nonholiday month, well, thank you for finding me either way. Anyway, if you are an OG listener, you should already know that I’m doing a series leading up to the systems and workflow magic bundle, the 4. 0 version. And this version is all about launching strategically. And in this series, I am interviewing the various amazing. Contributors who are a part of this bundle. So as you all know, I don’t joke around with the bundles I create, which means I don’t joke around with the contributors I reach out to. So this contributor I have on the podcast today is so exceptionally amazing. You are going to want to run and get to know her and her business right after this episode. Like I, I guarantee you, cause right before we hit. Record on this, podcast episode. She was getting fired up about what she was going to talk about, which got me fired up for the listeners. So today I have Taylor Cusick Holman on the podcast and yes, It’s going to be like Christmas in your ears listening to her. Okay. So a more formal introduction to Taylor. Taylor is a marketing consultant and a small business builder, and she is the founder of Engie. though you might recognize her from one of her. Other companies, tailored media designs, and sourced co in her newest endeavor. Taylor is taking everything she has learned over nearly a decade of helping small businesses with marketing to design and build a suite of online marketing tools that fit your lifestyle. That makes sense for you. Because while you didn’t sign up to be the chief marketing officer of your business at Engie, Taylor believes becoming one doesn’t have to be so daunting. All right. Angie’s goal is to empower you with the tools and solutions you need to make more informed decisions. Use your resources more effectively, get creative with how you connect with customers, and ultimately grow your business, which everybody wants. So that’s a great, like little Christmas present for us all. All right. So let me talk a little bit more about NG. All right. So NG is a suite of online marketing tools. Everyone can use NG believes in empowering small business owners with realistic solutions designed to deliver real-world results because complicated convoluted and riddled with confusing jargon. I know it’s not our thing, especially on the systems and workflow magic podcast. That’s not our thing. so Angie wants to simplify marketing. And so now I just gave a very formal introduction about NG, but, Taylor, I just want to say thank you again for being on the systems and workflow magic podcast. Can you give a less formal introduction to who you are just come on because I know I’ve been like. raving about you for the past several minutes, but thank you. Welcome!
Tayler Cusik-Hollman: I am so excited to be here, Dolly. This is one of those wonderful moments where the internet connects, you know, two people that probably otherwise our worlds would have never collided. And I’m so thankful that it did. If I remember correctly, I think you heard me on, the brands that book podcasts with Davey Jones. One of my favorite people, and so I’m gonna have to formally thank Devi for inadvertently connecting the two of us, because like I said, I’m so thankful for it. And yes, the formal introduction is great, but I think people will get to know me quickly that I’m the opposite of a formal person. I’m a very casual, hey, let’s just Get down to it and be weird at the same time. But, you know, I’ve been a marketing consultant working with small businesses for about eight years now at the time that we’re recording this podcast, and I specialized in working with creative small business owners and wedding professionals. And, you know, really over the years, what I’ve had the honor of doing is supporting all these businesses with helping them create marketing strategies and plans so that they can, you know, get it together so that marketing hopefully is less of that big scary animal that sits in the, you know, corner of your office and stares you down every day. But, you know, throughout COVID. I was very fortunate to be busy during that time because one of the main services that I offer under Tailored Media is copywriting and website copywriting. And there was something in the water in like 2020, 2021 where the entire world just decided that all at the same time everyone was going to understand the importance of really great copy. So I was fortunate to be busy, but at the same time, it made me frustrated because I was operating at my capacity, right? I had to book people for six, or nine months out in the future. And so that was the personal pain point that I was experiencing. And like, how do I figure out a way to serve more people without there needing to be this like long delay between when they contact me with a problem and when I can finally solve it? Yeah. And so the other half of that is. Even though I was really busy, I also kind of simultaneously had time to take a step back and be like, okay, let me think about all the things. And one of the phrases that almost everyone would tell me, and it’s so funny because, it took me so long for it to click in my head, but people would say, Taylor, just tell me what to do. And I was like, okay. I think now I’m putting all the pieces together and that’s kind of the, you know, the magical spark that happened that put the idea for what NG would be into my head. And really, the thing that got me fired up before we hit record on this podcast was I do wake up every day. Feeling like, okay, let’s go, let’s, I am a very energetic person and I love nothing more than helping people through education and tools, that’s the teacher in me, and you know, I’m stoked every day that I get to work up and, or wake up and Engie is the thing that I get to do because it, it can touch and support so many more people than I could have Had I just stayed on a consultant path.
Dolly DeLong: I am so glad that, I mean, it sucks that 2020 happened, but it’s so cool how many amazing businesses and ideas and services were formed out of 2020, I think.
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Totally. Yeah. 2020, 2021. We’re terrible. Yeah. Very terrible years.
Dolly DeLong: But very just like the creativity that was born out of the, like the terrible situation. And this is something that I know myself, and my audience struggles with my listeners struggle with. We have great businesses. We have great services, but like, how do we even consistently market these services as a solo business owner? And so that is like, when I was listening to, I’m going to link the podcast in the notes of the show description, but, Davey Jones’s, podcast, brands that book. And I was listening in to your conversation with him and I was like. This is the solution that I have been looking for in my own business. Just, I know how to do what I do. I know what I do, but like how, when, and where should I show up? And cause I felt so out, very thin, worn out, scattered, like all over the place. And so I just needed a consistent somebody to tell me what to do essentially.
Tayler Cusik-Hollman: That’s how you and I were connected. Yeah, you know, and I love that you talked about how this is the solution you were looking for, because one of, kind of, everyone’s got a brain dump like Google Doc of just, or you know, that unsent email that you keep writing to yourself, and it just becomes a notepad. I mean, that 100 percent is me. But, you know, one of the kinds of, pieces of copy that I think I used on the website copy for Engie was NG is the solution you’ve been looking for, but Google hasn’t given you. And, so you, you hit the nail on the head there, where there’s this, mix of things that people know that they need, but they don’t exactly know how to articulate it. And It doesn’t exist in its entirety, right? it’s been this piecemeal system that people have been forced to put together, which can be functional, right? we all have, there’s probably no one piece of software that’s a perfect all-in-one solution, right? That just doesn’t exist. It’s the thing that we would all like to exist, and on the business side of things, I would love to build the perfect all-in-one solution. But the reality is, your brain thinks differently than my brain thinks differently than someone else’s brain. And so that perfection, it can’t cover all of those bases. so there is value in putting together and building your system of tools that, you know, are A, B, and C. But when it comes to marketing, so much of it of becoming a really strong marketer for yourself is understanding how all these pieces work together, right? They’re not like your email marketing is one thing and your social media marketing is another and then you might have a few other things worked into the mix. you have to understand how these cogs and gears are all Hopefully working in the same direction and not what my hands are doing, which is like working in the opposite direction. Exactly. In the same direction. and that’s what hasn’t existed is one place where it starts to make the marketing picture crystal clear for small business owners. And you know, that’s what, that is what we are building and set out to do. And that’s our mission at Engie is to give small business owners, hopefully, something that’s. Reduces the number of tabs that live open in your browser, but also leans into helping you become a better marketer yourself, like super comfortable and empowered in that space.
Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. And that’s like a perfect transition into like our meat, like the meat. Conversation. the heart of this topic is, you probably have guessed this about me, Taylor, but I like to treat every episode on this podcast. Like it’s a little mini mastermind so that my listeners can walk away with tangible tips and action items to apply to the back end of their business. And I am so excited about chatting about more marketing workflow
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: tips. Yeah. You know, I. That’s one of the things that when I, before we ever actually chatted, I don’t, I mean, you probably did the same thing to me, but I went on your website and I was poking around who is Dolly? She seems cool. You know, like systems are. Your brand and looking through your website and starting to get to know you was the thing that made me realize that there isn’t a marketing system for people, right? Going back to what we were talking about just a few minutes ago, it’s been this disparate, population of random things. Yeah. And there hasn’t been a system, but there, there’s so much conversation around the importance of workflows and systems. And. That’s because, you know, workflows are the thing that helps you keep it together. Even though people have workflows for their inquiry process and sales and how they deliver their products and services and, you know, if you’re a service-based provider, you probably even have a workflow for how you take your clients through the off-boarding experience to close things up, which is important. If anyone listening doesn’t have that, talk to Dolly and work with her to get an offboarding workflow set up. but the marketing workflow is one that people just, it just flies over their heads for some reason. And my theory on why it goes straight over people’s heads is because. None of us went to school for marketing. I mean, myself included. My background is in psychology and sociology, so I understand people. And that translated well into when I started getting into the marketing space. So I did knock on wood and ended up using my college education. Thankful for that. but I think that when it comes to marketing workflows. They’re more nuanced and layered than the ones that we typically think about setting up, like if we’re talking about a sales workflow, you know, you get a lead, you have a con, a consultation, you send a proposal, you send a contract, you get a, an invoice sent out. It’s just, that it’s more mechanical. Yes. Marketing As much as we would all wish it would just fit the cogs in the thing, it’s not like that. And there are these layers to it, and The two layers are, which, if I take a half step back, they probably exist for all the other workflows, but for some reason, you know, people are more comfortable in them, because there’s the decision maker layer to marketing, and then there’s the doer layer, right? And I’m pretty sure we all drag our feet when it comes to the doer part, because that’s, Where we all get tired real quick, right? it’s the, I gotta, oh, what do I gotta do today? Oh man, I didn’t remember to do that, or I’m gonna kick this.
Dolly DeLong: Yeah. I think that’s good. And also I know a lot of my listeners are also, not only just creative business owners, but also they might be moms. and so they are focusing on their families or spouses. a lot of my listeners are also. More like believers. And so I’ve picked up on this, that certain backgrounds have told us not to promote ourselves because that is seen as not being like, I don’t know, it’s not being humble, right? Not being humble or like just talking about yourself all the time. But here’s the thing you all your business. Like you have to promote yourself. if you don’t have a marketing team, you have to, in order. To kind of like essentially pay the bills of your business to make it run. And I know that’s hard, it’s hard. he’ll to get over as a business owner if you, especially if you’re starting, and then there’s like the psychology component, there are so many layers, depending upon your personality, you’re not being, you don’t want to do it. You don’t feel like doing it. You don’t feel worthy enough to do it. there are so many different layers and components to this.
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: 100%. And, you know, going back to. The fact that a lot of people are made uncomfortable by marketing because of the self-promotion piece. I mean, myself included, I have a mom I’m the worst person at taking a compliment.
Dolly DeLong: I get all twitchy. I don’t know how to respond to this!
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: And, you know, one of the things that are important for any business owner, whether you’re a product-based business or a service-based business, is that having happy clients and customers is not enough. It’s a part of the equation. And that’s where, you know, you can let your humbleness shine, right? Like just serve your heart out to make sure that people have what they need. And they, have a great experience working with you, but that only takes your business so far. Yeah. And. It’s cool if you want your business to be small, like a truly small niche business that you can always operate on your own. That’s cool. Not everyone needs to or wants to have a six, seven-figure business, which is not easy to do despite the ads that you get served. It’s not, it’s not. but. If you are someone who wants to, if growth is a part of your long-term plan and goals that you have for yourself, then you do need to, it’s, it is not arrogant, and it is not selfish to self-promote, as long as you do it from a good place. And the great thing about what a lot of your audience and listeners are doing is they truly want to help people. And so if you put that first, and you put education and support first, then you’re doing something in the most mission-driven way. That’s, it’s not self-serving, but it does come back to benefit you, right? Yeah,
Dolly DeLong: I think another, maybe you’ve seen this a lot, maybe this is something that I noticed within, that’s so saturated within the photography world, because you and I also, Where the hat of being a service-based business center through photography is, Oh if I promote myself, what will so and so think of me? What will so and so business center think of me? Because they also do the same thing. And I don’t want to do that. I feel like I hear that all the time and I’m sure that there are other business centers in other adjacent businesses or different types of businesses that are the same way. I don’t know. Have you encountered that?
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Oh yeah, and I encountered that person the first time, I am not the only marketing consultant that lives on this planet. Oh my gosh, I’m like one of a million. And I’m good friends with a lot of the marketing consultants that have niched down to the wedding industry because that’s the space that I play in the most. And it’s, I think that you have superhuman powers if you can somehow block that out all the time and not ever feel, Like You know, a little bit of jealousy or comparison like that. Those are all very normal reactions to have and it’s just about how you kind of repackage them, sit with them, and, you know, acknowledge how they’re making you feel and, you know, Just don’t have, as my therapist likes to tell me and remind me, respond and don’t react. Right. Taylor, you should respond. take a beat. do all those things. let it sit with you and then kindly respond instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to something. Yeah. you know, but having. a system for yourself to go through the motions of marketing. I think it makes it a little less impersonal, not in a destructive way, but in a productive one. Yeah.
Dolly DeLong: it’s something like going back into using, utilizing Engie, to help incorporate my marketing workflow. It’s helped me set up those. Kind of guard rails of emotions. because I, of course, I know you all think I’ve gotten a lot of people that DM me and they’re like, you’re so happy all the time, you know? And yes, I think I’m a pretty happy person, but there are moments where I also fall into the comparison trap and I’m like, why am I doing this other person’s doing it way better? I should just burn it all to the ground. but the thing is, when I set up when I’ve utilized Engie to help me set up a marketing workflow, it has helped me set up these guardrails of not comparing myself as much because I’m just comparing myself to my past self, if that makes sense, like by my past benchmarks. So I am just in what is the word I’m looking for? I compete with just myself then.
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Yeah, and you know, I think part of the reason that it helps to, you know, actually create a marketing plan that sets up those guardrails is that so much of those, so many of those emotional reactions we have are because We start to question what we’re doing and we start to think, I’m not doing that. Maybe I should add that to my plate. And then we end up with an overstuffed buffet plate that’s you can’t possibly eat all this food. and then it becomes overwhelming in a different way. And so like having a plan. the guardrails is a great way to describe it because it’s like this is, it defines this is where I’m going to live and I’m going to focus on those things only and everything that’s outside of that lane I don’t have to worry about and I, the nicest part of me is it also puts you in a space where you’re better, you’re in a better spot to then be a great cheerleader for the people who do similar things to you, who are doing those other things because you’re genuinely not looking at them as you’re not doing the comparison game. You’re just like, hey, I am genuinely stoked that is working for you. And bravo, keep going. And hopefully, it’s a reciprocal relationship, right? And we’re all friends and that friend of mine is on the Internet. but I think that’s one of the kind of the latent benefits of just really being focused you can show up for yourself better. And then you also can show up for, you know, your friends who do similar things in a better way.
Dolly DeLong: Yeah, I love it.
Dolly DeLong: Okay. we can just I could go on and on about the emotional components of. Like setting up these workflows and how they help out. Cause I know you and I both have that background in psychology. but I know my listeners are like, come on, Dolly, we want more strategies. Taylor, I like going, talking more about marketing workflows, can you give like some tangible ways NG helps out with these marketing workflows?
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Yeah, I would love to dive into that and we talked about how there are these two layers to a marketing system that people often overlook and that’s the CMO level where you’re making your strategic decisions. And then the doer level that we all are like, but for I would go so far to say is most of us. have to wear both of those hats, right? Maybe we’re outsourcing parts of the doer workflow, but You know, as a small business owner of one, you know, maybe you’ve got like a few hours of external help a week and the bulk of the responsibility still sits on your shoulders. So for kind of the bulk of this conversation, I’m going to talk about things. As if we own both of those hats. We own the, yes, the CMO hat and the doer hat. Okay. So when it comes to what you have to do as the CMO of your business, as I said, the biggest thing you need to do is make strategic decisions. and so when that. Is related to the workflow that you’re looking to set up. You’ve got to set your direction first. And so that’s why most people, I mean, unless you live under a rock, you hear, a lot of marketing consultants and people who are pitching you marketing content, the importance of a marketing strategy or a plan, right? And that is what you talked about earlier, Dali. It’s the guardrails of this is the direction that I’m going to go. And When you’re sitting down to create this marketing strategy or plan, there’s like the, I’m using finger quotes here, the old way of doing it, because, you know, it, up until we launched Engie, it was a very manual time-consuming process. When clients would hire me to put together a custom strategy for them, I would block Two to three days out on my calendar, and all I did for two or three days was think about their business and put together this bespoke strategy for them. And most people don’t have two to three days to sit down and not do anything other than think about marketing strategy. So with an NG, that was the first big goal and the hurdle that I wanted to get people over was how do we get them a marketing strategy almost at the snap of a finger. And all you’ve got to do to get this piece of your marketing workflow done is play a game of 20 questions with us. That’s how I like to describe it. Because it’s a really simple questionnaire. And you answer the questions, and then based on your answers, Engie’s doing all this like thinking and moving around of things in the background. You can’t see, but that’s what it’s doing, and then it spits out your marketing strategy for you. Yeah. And so, for most people, it takes, you’re moving very quickly, five minutes to answer the questionnaire. If you’re someone who’s gonna like really think through every one of your answers, maybe it takes you 20 minutes, but that’s still Not two or three days of your time. It’s so fast. So that’s the first step in really coming up with your CMO marketing workflow. And then the second component to this is how you as the CMO going to approve what’s going to happen when it comes to marketing. Because that is one of your responsibilities. Whether or not you’re outsourcing anything or you’re doing it yourself, you still have to have a meeting to decide that this is what I’m going to do. And that like this piece of, you know, like graphic design is up to par with my brand or, you know, all those decisions that you make. all of the time, that’s the approval process, right? Even if you are just sitting silently in your home office and having them with you. So whether you’re doing it on your own or with someone else, having an idea of, or standards, right? this is what meets. the bar of approval. And this is part of the reason why in Engie we built out a brand style guide. I’m
Dolly DeLong: so glad you talked about that. That’s one of my favorite parts of
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: about Engie. I know, right? It’s such, it’s like the creative brain break that everybody needs and is important. But I mean, I don’t know if you probably are experiencing some of this as you’re collecting all the assets from the contributors to the bundle. Yeah. Some people aren’t going to send you the right file types or this, that, and the other? As a consultant, I would get clients who are like, I need to dig through this email to find my logo file. Like, why are you digging through an email to find your logo? Exactly. why is it just a screenshot PDF? Having a brand style guide is like the foundational piece that you can then share strategically at certain points when you’re working. On projects. and then the next piece of this CMO workflow is figuring out what’s working with your marketing, which is The thing that I think everyone struggles with like it’s a big existential question that we all have. What’s working with my marketing? What’s not? Because that translates into what’s worth my money and what’s worth my time. Yes. Yeah. the big two things, like the time we can never get back, and the money we can hopefully make more of, but still, they are not endless wells of resources, right? there’s a capacity and limit on both of those things. And as the CMO who’s overseeing your marketing, It is your responsibility to track metrics or key performance indicators, which is intimidating to a lot of people because especially when we’re talking about creative business owners, you’re like, I mean, even photographers, I love when I get to work with photographers on website copy because they’re like, I want four words on my website, you know, like my work was big for itself. And I’m like, yes, but no, we also, I’m like laughing
Dolly DeLong: because I’m guilty of that, you just want to be like joyful. Bold.
Tayler Cusik-Hollman: Like, yes. I’m like
Dolly DeLong: yes. Storytelling. yes. I know what she means. I’m laughing because I’m like,
Tayler Cusick Hollman: that’s true. Yeah, it’s funny because it’s true. And you know, this is, I want to emphasize this point for the creatives that are tuning in because You do need to, you can, you need to track your numbers and you can do it. It is not I’m not asking you to do calculus. I can’t do calculus. I also cannot even create, please don’t ask me to write a formula in an Excel spreadsheet. I don’t know how to do anything other than highlight some cells to get the sum. that’s the extent of what I can do in a spreadsheet. So I am right there with you. And it is a very important exercise that you need to do every month. And so in NG, we’ve got this really easy way for you to drop in your numbers and you get these pretty graphs that help you understand what the numbers are doing without you needing to think really at all about it because we take in visual information so much faster than needing to try to figure out what a spreadsheet of numbers is telling us. I will
Dolly DeLong: say I will interject and say that and she’s really good about providing literally. I know it’s not all the, but it’s all the KPIs you would ever need for marketing a decision. when I was starting to use NG, of course, my personality, I wanted to do all the things, but then I realized if I did all the things, I would not do anything, because it would be overwhelming. So I just chose for me and my business, like five to six KPIs starting. And I add to it. At like during my workflow at the end of the month, I do a big marketing workflow day where I track all these KPIs and it’s really easy. Visually for me then to see how I’m tracking. So just pick out five KPIs and start from there. I don’t know what you would do. Yeah, no,
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: that’s great, I always recommend it. Starting in a realistic place because realistic for you is different than realistic for someone else and you can almost swap out the word realist, realistic for not scary. I just want people to do the not-scary thing. Yeah. So if five metrics are what you feel comfortable tracking start with that. I think in the end, a lot of businesses over time are going to end up with something like a dozen KPIs that they’re tracking. And maybe you’ll start tracking some and realize Hey, you know, this doesn’t float my boat. And so you can just delete it or stop tracking it and you can swap something out. But the point is, is to get into that monthly habit. don’t let this marketing piece of your workflow become like your bookkeeping where you do it once every six months. And oh, yeah,
Dolly DeLong: I was guilty of that. I was so guilty of that. And then I had to hire a bookkeeper because of that very
Tayler Cusik-Hollman: thing. Which is one, one of the best things you can do for yourself and your business is to hire a bookkeeper. But, you know, with your KPIs, I encourage people to stay on top of this part of their workflow because it is the one that gives you the answers. you can’t argue with numbers. They’re like unashamedly Brutally honest with you. Yeah.
Dolly DeLong: I will share with the listeners. One of my KPIs for myself is my podcast downloads every month. And sometimes I can get in my head, like, why am I even doing this podcast? No, one’s listening. No, like other people are more popular than me. I just like, again, like this is when negative Dolly comes out in my head. I’m just going to burn it. I’m just not going to. Do any more podcast episodes? And then I do my monthly KPI, for the podcast downloads and I compare it to all the months I’ve been doing it. And for right now, it’s been two solid years of just podcasting. And then I see the chart and I’m like, Oh, I have been steadily growing every month. Maybe I’m not. Like at the level of, I don’t know, like a really popular podcast, but they started somewhere and they probably were, I was like at a certain point in their journey. And so I have to, it’s like just looking at a little Hill going up graphic. And then I’m like, Oh, okay. Okay. I’ll just keep on going. And then I do that with, Oh, and then. I do. Can I share one of my KPIs? Yeah. is the website visitor one that was helpful because I noticed that I have the most website visitors every anytime I do a collaboration because I am bringing in other people’s, audiences to my website to accomplish a certain goal. Those are the months that like, it goes, it’s like bananas. And then it tapers down to then showing me visually, like the months that I am only marketing my business by myself like it shows me the power of. I need to get more audiences to my website. And this is like maybe collaborations or maybe just like doing more another type of, what’s the word I’m
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: looking for? Like pr, right? PR basically, yeah.
Dolly DeLong: Yeah, because like those, and then I see my, and then I decided to look at my revenue for those months that where my website was up and those were. More revenue-earning months for me. So that told me, okay, more website visitors. More revenue. What was I doing in those months? Oh, I was collaborating. Either my collaboration or somebody else’s collaboration. Oh, that’s what’s working
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: for me. Exactly. So do more of that. Yeah. Right? Like that, I love that you told that story because that is the power of tracking these metrics and being able to see them. Yes. And This is how I think that there’s when you were talking about your podcast downloads, there’s this piece of positive reinforcement that happens when you see it, right? You don’t, you’re not left in this space where you can only make assumptions that are oftentimes incorrect about what’s going on in your business. And so you can get the positive reinforcement that you need to fuel your motivation to keep going. But you also can then put things together of what is worth it and then I mean, breaking news folks, do more of that. That’s what marketing is. You find out what makes you money and you do more of that. And so that’s why this is such an important part of your CMO workflow. And then that kind of leads into the budgeting piece of what you need to do strategically when you’re looking at marketing your business. Once you know, hey, what is working for me? Then that’s where it makes the most sense to put any money on something, on any one particular marketing channel or partnership or advertisement, whatever that is because you already have a certain level of confidence that it’s going to have a return for you instead of, I’m just gonna go burn some money. I’m like, I hope that it, I hope that it does something. So those are the four pieces of a CMO workflow that, you know, the setting of the direction for me happens at a minimum on an annual basis, where it’s like you’re defining the strategy for the year, but it also has these quarterly, Maybe monthly touch points. Okay. Where you’re reorienting yourself or everyone who’s involved. this is what we’re doing this quarter, this is what we’re doing this month. And then having that workflow for reviewing your content to approve it. Tracking your KPIs every month. Happy KPI day. That’s my thing. And then, overseeing your budget. And that one pairs well with when you’re doing your bookkeeping. and or your KPI reviews every month. so that’s the CMO workflow. But then when we get down to the doer level, your workflow here, this is the one where It’s more time-consuming and I think draining because it’s the creative part of this whole process. And, but it includes three parts. It includes creating your content. Then you have to go out there and you have to engage, right? both proactively and reactively with people. but then there’s also a component of KPIs worked into the doer workflow as well. And when it comes to creating your content, this is whatever floats your boat is the best approach for me. The example that I’ll share, because this is my workflow, is every Friday, which is my social media scheduling day. I am, I put nothing else on my calendar every Friday, and I am creating next week’s social media content, and I am scheduling it. And come hell or high water, that is what you will find me doing every single Friday. Well, I guess maybe if I’m mountain biking or skiing on a Friday, then I’ll do it on Thursday. But, so that’s my doer workflow. I also have certain days of the month that I know I am writing blog posts and scheduling email newsletters, but coming up with those habits is what is going to save you on this part of your marketing workflow and system. Can I say something here?
Dolly DeLong: if a listener is listening and they’re like, I try to set aside time, but then once I open up my computer, I just stare at a blinking cursor. I just want to Taylor. I know the listeners can’t see me, but Taylor can see me. I’m like looking to the side. I have my own NG screen opened up on my other screen. Angie has this AI tool called the copywriter, and it helps you draft blog posts, Instagram captions, Facebook posts, tweets, TikTok captions, and pin descriptions.
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Yep, it does. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna be adding to those. And, because we’re recording this before, you know, sorry guys, Dolly and I, as much as we enjoy spending time together, we’re not chatting on Christmas day. I know
Dolly DeLong: you were like, wow, Dolly’s hard worker on Christmas. You know, I am most likely just watching my boys. Open up all the presents. Tear up the house, right?
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Yes. Tear up the house. But, so yeah, the, we’ve got the AI copywriter and we are, I’m in the process of adding a few more prompts to that. well before this podcast episode goes live, we will have added a social media scheduler. so, like, we’re trying to create one place where you can go and not have to fight blank canvas syndrome because you’ve got an AI copywriter to spit out that first draft for you. And then make it easy to schedule it to go out all in one place without, again, having to, you know, a platform to
Dolly DeLong: platform, that would be amazing. Yep,
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: it’s happening. It is happening. and so it will, as I said, be life at the time that this episode is published. That is so exciting. Yeah. I’m stoked for it. but, so there’s the content creation piece that everyone needs to come up with their workflow for, because it is super personal, depending on how you, what day of the week fits your schedule best, and what time of the day you’re most creative, right? Like all of those things. And so don’t force it on a, like on a day, if Fridays are terrible days for you, Don’t do it on Fridays, but that’s a day because my, not, I’m not doing client work anymore, but historically working with wedding professionals, Fridays, they’re all at weddings, so they’re not bugging me. So that was my quiet day, whereas Monday is their day off, and so they’re all like, You know, I think you frantically so so pick whatever day of the week fits for you The engagement piece of what you need to do in the doer part of your marketing workflow That’s it. It’s best suited as a daily habit You know, like it makes the Instagram algorithm happy if people are replying to your email newsletter, be sure to reply in a very timely manner. but do a mix of proactively engaging with folks and then also reacting with replies to their comments. I mean, this is stuff that all of the social media folks are telling us to do, so do that. It’s solid advice. And then the CMO is going to analyze the KPIs, but the doer is the person who’s going to input the KPIs into, you know, wherever it’s being documented, hopefully in, in English, cause it’s easy. And so that’s a monthly workflow. So you’ve got a mix of daily, weekly, and monthly habits that you need to fit into. You know, what you’re doing to make sure that your marketing is feeling fresh and consistent and all of those things. So that
Dolly DeLong: if you guys want an example of how I do this, so you all know how much I love Trello. And I use that as my project management tool and I have a master board that I have. Created for myself and then I actually in this master board is I go to it every day. I assess what my daily tasks are, what my weekly tasks are, and what my monthly tasks are. And then I even have, in a list in this Trello board, I have linked my Engie board. So I just click over to Engie daily and it reminds me, okay, this is how I’m like. What I’m going to accomplish today. And so if you are wondering, do I have to follow everything step by step? like what Taylor is saying? No, do what works best for you. So if you use ClickUp, for example, click over, no pun intended, click over to NG from your ClickUp board or Asana or Monday, whatever you use or Google Drive, whatever you use, and make it part of your daily. Weekly and monthly habits because, again, you could want and want your business to grow, but if you don’t take the first step and take action, none of this is going to happen for you. Sorry, some tough love on Christmas, but none of this will happen.
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: I mean, you’re taking the words right out of my mouth because there’s. When it comes to marketing, I want to be as kind and gentle as possible, but there is this component of I, I just need to give people tough love because, for some reason, there’s a disconnect between how important people know marketing is and where it sits on their list of priorities, right? And, you know, I think, kind of, This ties into to what you were just saying, and is it kind of a good thing to leave people with as we wrap up. I was on the Peloton this morning, and one of the instructors that I take all the time is Leanne Hainsby, and. She said today, something to the effect of, When you don’t have the motivation to do something, you have to lean on discipline. And I was like, Yes. yes. Because we don’t wake up every day feeling super jazzed No. To do all of the things that we know sit in front of us. But that is where discipline comes into play, and that is the magical mix of things that separates a small business owner who is succeeding on their terms, whatever success looks like for them, but that is the mix of things that separates Those who succeed from those who stagnate and so I hope that people do take the time to look at their marketing system and how they can create a work like a solid workflow for themselves because. Marketing is how you get folks in the door to give you their money.
Dolly DeLong: And the money is what makes your business keep on moving. Like it just, it’s just a thing. It’s just a thing. this is a perfect little segue because I had mentioned earlier that Taylor is one of the amazing contributors to the systems and workload magic bundle, the launch edition. And you’re probably all wondering, what does this have to do with launching? You do have to market yourself during the prelaunch phase if you are launching a digital product launching a service, or if you are relaunching something, you do have to market yourself. So this is where that puzzle piece component comes in. I wanted to, ask Taylor, do you mind giving a little teaser as to what you,
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: contributing to the bundle. Yes. interestingly enough, this, it’s kind of a new feature, but kind of not, but I, it was always sitting on my list, and honestly, Dolly, you’re the person that was like, okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do this, because this was such a great opportunity to, and, I guess the reason to get it done before the bundle. So one of the tools that we have in Engie is a marketing campaign tool where you can, you know, go in and plan out marketing pushes and promotions and sales. But what I’m at the time of this recording, I am eyeball deep in creating a Series. not necessarily a series, but a bunch of marketing campaign templates so that the tasks that you need to do are all laid out for you already. Wow. And a bunch of those templates are going to be launch templates. Like, how do I launch a business? How do I launch a new brand and website? How do I launch a new product? and there’ll be all, there’ll just be a great mix of done-for-you ready lists so that you don’t have, the heavy thinking that is going to be done for you. Yeah. And You know, as I said, it was, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to build, but you can all thank Dolly for pushing me over the edge and giving me a time-constrained reason to get it done. So you guys are all going to have access to that and I’ll come up with some other fun things to include in the bundle, that are very much related to those launch checklists. But yeah, we’re, I’m super, super excited to support you guys with a clear, okay, this is what I’m going to do. I
Dolly DeLong: am so excited, Taylor. I am so excited. talking about it makes me so excited for February to come. And you all like, as we’re recording this, we’re recording this way before February, ’cause I am a firm believer in batching out content to get ready for the fall, but you all know that. But anyway, I hope this gets you even more pumped to check out the systems that workflow magic bundle, the launch edition, and then. Okay, Taylor, I have to ask you, how can people find you, work with you, connect with you, and just get to know you?
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: Yeah, so my corner of the internet is, if, as a geriatric millennial, you’ll find me on Instagram. I’m also a geriatric millennial. Yes, geriatric millennials unite. Um, so you will find me on Instagram. And our handle is at ng underscore co, and that’s e n j i underscore co. And the website is ng. co. You know, you can sign up, you can find me in all the places, but, you know, we’ve got email lists and I technically am on TikTok and threads and all those other places. But, if you want to connect with me, which I would love to do, Instagram is my jam. And so you’ll find me doing all of the, it’s all marketing talk all the time, but also a good mix of just Taylor being weird. Too well, I
Dolly DeLong: Taylor, I’ve liked getting to know you on Instagram. I’ve been like, I like her even more. And now I like you even more. And now that I found out you’re a geriatric millennial, just like myself. So I’m like, somebody else gets it. Yeah. All these young people and Instagram, I’m like, you guys don’t
Tayler Cusick-Hollman: know anything. All of you kids out there. thank you so much
Dolly DeLong: again, Taylor for coming on the show. And as a reminder to everyone, if. Everything that we mentioned is going to be listed in the podcast show notes and the corresponding blog posts as well. So feel free to click on over and grab those show notes. And then as always next week, I will come back with another system’s SOP and workflow. Related podcasts so that you can apply it to the back end of your business. And until then, I hope you have a streamlined and amazing week. You amazing muggle you and merry Christmas or happy Christmas, as they say in Harry Potter, and I will talk to you all next week. Bye.
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