📈 Minimalist Marketing Tactics to Explode Your Profits 💥
Sales is all about building relationships. In this episode, we take a look at minimalist marketing tactics that will help entrepreneurs who are just starting out. Adrienne Hill sits down for a talk with the Founder of Ellen Yin Media LLC, Ellen Yin. Adrienne quizzes Ellen on marketing and sales techniques and how she grew and scaled her business. Learn more marketing tips and strategies in this episode.
Helpful links:
Connect with Ellen:
Book a 6-Figure Strategy Session - Adrienne’s free gift for you:
Adrienne’s Entrepreneur Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitablepassiveincomestrategies
#impactfulentrepreneurshow #guestinterview #minimalistmarketing
---
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
📈 Minimalist Marketing Tactics to Explode Your Profits 💥
Impactful Entrepreneur Show Guest Interview
Have you been building a business using social media specifically and you have a teeny tiny or non-existent audience but you have aspirations of high-income roles? If you do, this is the perfect episode for you. We're going to dive deep into how to use minimalistic marketing and messaging that is super simple that will allow you to speak directly to the people who are ready to buy so that you do not have to build a massive audience full of tire kickers or looky-loos. You are talking directly to the people who are ready to take action on exactly what you offer so that you can boost your profits even if you have a teeny tiny audience. Let’s do this.
---
I'm here with Ellen Yin. I'm very excited. She is the Founder of Cubicle to CEO and an expert in all things marketing minimalism. I can't wait to dig into what that means because who couldn't go for something a little bit simpler? Welcome, Ellen.
Adrienne, thank you so much for having me. It’s a very sweet intro. I'm totally with you. Simplicity is key in business and in life.
For the readers who maybe have not met you yet or who don't know you yet, could you tell us a little bit about your story and what brings you here with us?
My name is Ellen Yin. I'm so excited to be here. What physically brought me to this actual summit interview Adrienne and I were chatting about is we have a mutual friend in common, which is so awesome that's how we discovered each other. I do believe that it illuminates this bigger idea that at the end of the day, business is all about relationships. I believe that sales at its core are about relationships and communication. Even when I'm thinking about a sales journey or sales process, I don't call it a sales funnel. I call it a relationship funnel.
There are lots of things there that I'm excited to share about but in regards to my own story of being a business owner, I am what I would consider an accidental entrepreneur. I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that. I did not have this big grand plan that I was going to start my own business. I left my corporate job without any backup plans.
Minimalist Marketing Tactics: A lot of sales is psychology. It's just human behavior. It's no different than you deciding what show you're going to watch on Netflix or where you are going to go out to eat with your friends.
My idea was I was going to keep applying for jobs. During that first month out of work, ironically, it was an old coworker at the job I had left to reach out to me and said, "We heard that you are good at Instagram. We own these two local coffee businesses. We'd love your help getting our social media presence off the ground. Can you help us?”
It was a $300 project and I was so excited. I was like, "Let's do this. This will be so much fun." I jumped right in. Throughout that process of that first month working with that very first client, I realized, "If I can do this once, I can do it again." From there, I let it grow naturally. Years later, here I am. I'm still doing it.
I know one of the areas that you specialize in is in attracting clients to you. That's how you got started. They came to you. What's the key to attracting clients rather than having to go and chase them down?
It's all about messaging. I believe that 90% of people's sales problems come down to a breakdown in their messaging. Even things like sales objections, breakdown in messaging, a lot of sales is psychology. It's human behavior. It's no different than you deciding what show you're going to watch on Netflix or where you're going to go out to eat with your friends.
I believe that if you want to adopt an attraction model, you have to be able to understand your people inside and out. They need to feel like you are in their head when they are reading your content. That is what attracts them to you. That's what makes them go, "She understands me." Even more so than wanting a solution to whatever their problem is, people first and foremost want to feel seen and understood. Messaging is a huge piece of making sure that you're attracting people to you and not just trying to chase people down.
There could be some readers who’ve put in the hard work to build that foundation, to understand who their audiences are and how to speak to them. Then they've got it dialed but maybe they have a teeny tiny audience or starting from zero. What's the best way to make sales if you don't have a large audience and you are starting from ground zero?
I believe that you do not need a large audience in order to have a profitable business. In fact, I've done pretty much everything in my business. Not the way that most gurus would prescribe. I hate that whole concept. I'm like, "We're regular business owners. Why do we have to call each other gurus?" It's a thing for me but it doesn't matter how large your audience is if they are not an audience of problem-aware people.
Let me try to break this down in an analogy for you. The analogy I always use is, let's pretend that you are hosting a garage sale. You're cleaning out your house and doing a garage sale. The best buyers, the people who are going to be your best customers, the easiest to convert, the ones who are attracted to you are those hardcore thrifters.
The night before, they looked up your listing on Craigslist or Facebook. They jotted down all the homes they were going to hit up. They mapped out which way was the best way to go. They show up right early, maybe five minutes even before you are technically open to start shopping. Those people are both problem and solution-aware because the problem they have is, "I want to find a great deal." The solution-aware piece is that they believe that your garage sale is where they're going to find that. They're coming to you because they believe you have the answer.
The second type of person who shows up to your garage sale is problem-aware but they may not be solution-aware. Let's say someone is driving around and pass a garage sale sign pointing into your neighborhood. They go, "I'm looking for a coffee table. I would love to find a great deal. I don't want to buy it new." You're placing your solution in front of their face.
They didn't realize they didn't wake up that morning going, "I'm going to go to this person's garage sale," but now that it's in front of their face, they're like, "Might as well stop by." That's a person who is problem-aware but not solution-aware yet still a great buyer and easy to convert because they have the problem that you can solve for them.
The third type of person in this analogy is someone who is neither of those things. These are the people who didn't see your sign or didn't look up your house. They are just driving down the street happened to pass by your house. They see a bunch of people standing in your driveway, have no idea why they're there, don't know what it's about and aren't looking for a good deal.
Minimalist Marketing Tactics: Take the most efficient path to instant cashflow.
They're curious. They're like, "What's this crowd of people doing? I'm going to get out of my car and check it out." Those people are going to be the ones most likely to leave your sale empty-handed because they do not have the problem that your garage sale solves for them and they don't think necessarily that you're the solution that they're looking for.
All of this to say, instead of focusing on trying to build a large audience. Instead, I want you to think about, "How can I get in front of problem-aware people by finding them in the communities where they already exist so I don't have to waste months and years of my own time building up this large list or this large community to sell to, when in fact I can go find existing traffic and stand in front of it?"
Find them where they're already are. I'm sure that's different for every niche that someone might be running a business. Chances are my guess is there's probably a group out there, full of people somewhere. On social, it's probably like a Facebook, LinkedIn or a networking group.
You want to think about where your people already naturally congregate. What websites do they shop for? What people do they follow? What hashtags are they searching for? What groups are they part of? Where are these people who have the problem that you provide a service or a product that meets them where they need? Where are they already hanging out online? How can you find them in those traffic sources that have already been built for you?
You don't have to create a group. You have to find it. For those of you who have been trying to create this massive audience, you don't have to. Find it somewhere else. It already exists.
I'm not saying that there's something wrong with building an audience. Community and building a community are great for the longevity of your brand and your business. I advocate for that. Where people go wrong is they believe that's the only way to bring in cashflow. They're like, "I first have to do this in order to sign my first client." When in reality, that's the slow growth strategy. Why don't we instead get instant cashflow into your business and over time, you can build your audience, which will serve your business but you don't have to wait to do that in order to get your first client or customer through the door?
Speaking of instant cashflow, what are some immediate action steps or tips that our readers could take at the end of this interview in order to boost their leads and sales on social?
Part of it would depend on what platform you're using. One of the best ways to boost visibility on Instagram, which is my favorite platform, is through using hashtags. I have an entire system called Hashtag Hacks that I've developed to help specifically business owners and service providers with small audiences be able to leverage hashtags to get in front of thousands of new eyeballs every single week, people who are already searching for the content that they are creating, the content they're posting about, getting in front of problem-aware people.
I'm thinking about what are some natural visibility strategies that you can use. The bigger thing, honestly, in terms of instant cashflow is you want to take the most efficient path to get there. Where I see a lot of people struggle is they have shiny object syndrome. They're trying to do all the things all the time to market their business. In reality, I go against the grain of what a lot of people sometimes teach, not because I'm purposely trying to be a rebel or anything, but marketing does not have to be so complicated.
You can create the simplest sales funnel. When I say funnel, I don't even mean like, "Go build out a funnel on a platform like ClickFunnels, Kartra or Kajabi.” I mean, what is the process that someone takes to go from stranger to paying client or customer? What steps do they have to take? How do you lead them down that path in the quickest way possible?
For me, I personally believe that instead of hyper-focusing on creating new content every single day, planning out your perfect Instagram grid and making sure you post seven days a week at 10:00 AM Pacific time because that's what your insights told you. Instead of focusing on such surface-level things, let's instead get clear on messaging that is rooted in sales psychology and create a couple of quality pieces that help people overcome their objections before they ever talk to you.
Let's focus all of our limited time as business owners when we market to drive traffic to that existing content. Instead of focusing all your time on creating new content from scratch, let's create some quality evergreen content that you can consistently drive new traffic to. That content is going to help pull its weight and help sell for you.
I would imagine if it's resonating with people and the minute they read it, they're going, "She's in my head." They're going to be more likely to like, share, comment, interact and that's going to boost it even more.
Even beyond engagement, it's about driving them to the next step to give you their information to become a lead. You need a lead capture mechanism. For service providers, I typically suggest that to get someone as a lead and you haven't fill out a client application form, then that leads to a connection call or whatever it may be to close the deal.
It may be different. If you are a course creator, perhaps your lead or sales system is based around a long-form sales page or a webinar but being clear about how do I create a system that's repeatable so that I am not trying to sign every single client or every single customer in a brand-new way but instead driving all my traffic to one sales machine that closes people for me on repeat day in day out.
If you're limiting yourself to what you can physically do all by yourself manually, it's so hard.
It’s simplification and automation where it matters. I don't think you can outsource relationship building at its core but the things that you can simplify in your life, try to simplify.
Is that what you put under that umbrella of marketing minimalism?
Minimalist Marketing Tactics: Instead of focusing all your time on creating new content from scratch, create some quality evergreen content to which you can consistently drive new traffic.
Yeah. The idea of marketing minimalism is cutting out all the things that aren't leading to results in your business. I'm a very data-driven person. I don't want to be that person who shows up every day and post every day just because I've been told that's what I need to do or stressing about, "I got to grow my followers. My likes are down. The algorithm poo-pooed me." Who even cares?
That's what I always tell people. I'm like, "You're looking at the wrong metrics if you're obsessing over those things because none of those things directly result in the profitability of your business.” I always ask people like, "What are you prioritizing? What are your actual success metrics?" If it's about acquiring leads and customers, then who cares about any of that other stuff? How do we build a repeatable sales system that allows people to go take that journey from stranger to buyer in the most efficient way possible?
It sounds like you've worked with a wide range of clients. You follow the data. Are there certain metrics that you see clients over like they're trying to hit a certain income threshold? What is that holy grail that most people ask you to help them with?
The biggest one that comes up over and over again is, "How do I make my first $10,000 a month?" It's like this proverbial Promised Land. $10,000 months are this huge milestone in your business, rightfully so where you're at that point on the track to becoming a six-figure business. It's the first time where a lot of people feel like they are finally out of survival mode, starting to take a leadership role in their business and looking at, "What can this become? How can I grow this?”
It's a big deal. I love helping people get to that point in their business. I've worked with, at this point, hundreds of service providers, primarily service-based entrepreneurs or anyone who works in a one-on-one capacity or a small group capacity with their clients or customers, some direct sales and network marketers as well. Being able to get people to that $10,000 a month is so exciting.
We have a mix of all of those people probably here at the summit. If I was in a betting moment, they're probably all hoping to get to that $10,000 a month. Everyone's going, "Yes, please." What's the first step towards getting there? How do you get to that $10,000 a month?
I don't believe marketing is necessarily a one-size-fits-all but I believe that the foundations of sales do not change. It doesn't matter what industry you are in. When I was in college working in a movie theater, I'm trying to sell someone on a large popcorn and large soda combo. It’s the same concept as me trying to sell someone into my program or me trying to close a five-figure client.
There are different nuances to it, but the foundation of sales in a business does not change. I believe the best way to make $10,000 a month, we call it in my membership, is the Consistent Clients Cashflow System. We take everyone through a foundation's framework where they get clear on their messaging and creating a powerful evergreen content strategy that sells for them, so they don't have to post every day. Then we walk them through the three-part system to build that simple sales funnel to repeatedly attract the right people to them, drive that traffic, turn them into a lead, know how to close and understanding how to use sales psychology to close. In a nutshell, that's what it is.
It's the fundamental skillsets that are going to lead you there. Maybe between $10,000 and $1 million, it's less about the skillset and more about setting up like a repeatable structure or maybe even a team but in the beginning, it's the fundamental skills and she's nailing them.
My business has changed so much over these years. The biggest shift that I've seen personally from me moving from a 6-figure to a 7-figure business owner is mindset. That has been the number one game-changer in my ability to grow to new levels. When you're at the beginning with a lot of that tactical stuff, you do need to build those solid foundations. As you scale and grow, it almost becomes less about the tactics and more about your own limitations. It's all up here.
Business is a mental game. It's like tennis. That's what I always tell people. You can be the best tennis player in the world. The reason people lose tennis matches, which is very rarely, is because they tire out. Their mind is weaker than their opponents and they let it get to them. They start to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, missing shots and strokes.
Learning to master your mind is a critical skill too. You have to be the boss of your thoughts.
It's so hard. I cannot tell you how pivotal it is if you cannot take ownership of your thoughts. You let circumstances dictate your thoughts and your feelings. Therefore, with the actions that you take, your results will never quite align with what you want them to be.
I understand you have a free gift for our readers. Can you tell us about it?
Yes. If you're intrigued by this whole concept of marketing minimalism and building a repeatable system to make your first $10,000 a month, I would love for you to tune in to my masterclass, How to Make Your First $10,000 Month Without a Large Audience or Posting Every Day. It's a 45-minute on-demand training. I know you are busy, so I want you to get insane value out of this. If you go to EllenYin.com/class, you can start watching right away. We go over step by step The Consistent Clients Cashflow System that I was referencing. If you want a deeper dive into that whole system, go check out EllenYin.com/class.
Important Links:
About Ellen Yin
Ellen Yin is the founder of Cubicle to CEO, an online membership teaching service providers how to use a step by step system to attract consistent clients & make their first $10K month - without a large audience or complicated marketing strategies. Through her social media agency, Ellen Yin Media LLC, Ellen has worked with multi-million dollar brands, Fortune 500 executives, and best-selling authors. She has been featured on MTV and in publications like LA Style, The Penny Hoarder, Disrupt Magazine, and Authority Magazine. Ellen is also the host of the award-winning Cubicle to CEO Podcast, which features weekly interviews with top business leaders and successful entrepreneurs.