How to Be Resilient When Marketing Your Business with Katrina Aronson | MP 110

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How to Be Resilient When Marketing Your Business with Katrina Aronson

Do you have a unique marketing strategy for your business? How is your mindset a crucial part of effective marketing? Can working from the right mindset help prevent burnout?

In this podcast episode, Sam Carvalho speaks about how to be resilient when marketing your business with Katrina Aronson.

Podcast Sponsor: Brighter Vision

An image of Brighter Vision Web Solutions is featured as the sponsor on Faith in Practice Podcast, a therapist podcast. Brighter Vision builds all in one websites for therapists.

It’s that time of year again!

My friends over at Brighter Vision are once again kicking off the fall season with a month-long digital conference event they call ‘Fall Into Cash’.

For the entire month of September, they’ll be teaming up with the top brands, consultants, and coaches in the mental health industry to provide you with the best advice, tools, content, podcasts, and giveaways; all centered around one main goal – helping you grow your practice and make more money.

Plus, in celebration of the 6th anniversary of ‘Fall Into Cash’, they’re also offering a very special discount exclusively for Practice of the Practice listeners.

From now until the end of the month, they’re offering $20/month off of any website service plan for your whole first year plus no signup fees – that’s a savings of over $200!

For more information and to take advantage of this great offer, head on over to brightervision.com/joe.

Meet Katrina Aronson

A photo of Katrina Aronson is captured. She is a marketing consultant and entrepreneur. Katrina is featured on Marketing a Practice podcast.

Katrina comes from the corporate world, and left it to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams. In 2013, she started her first business and scaled it to 6+ figures with a killer team. In a few years, she burnt out and burned it all to the ground (aka sold and got out). She wanted to scale her business without missing out on her life. ​

She has since poured herself into helping other women to reach their revenue goals without burnout, and she’s had the honor of working with 100+ women (and counting) to break through their glass ceilings with marketing as their not-so-secret weapon. 

Visit her website, listen to her podcast, and connect on Facebook and Instagram.

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In This Podcast

  • Why you have to have a unique marketing strategy
  • Marketing is 50% mindset and 50% strategy
  • Craft your one-liner
  • Katrina’s advice to private practitioners

Why you have to have a unique marketing strategy

A lot of strategies work. If you believe it in and put your heart, soul, and effort into it, then it will very likely work.

But nowadays there are so many people selling things because of social media, because of how much people have access to them, and because the entry barriers are almost non-existent.

Plenty of people do, so what makes your business special? What makes it really shine?

(Katrina Aronson)

Business owners, to be truly successful, need to find ways to stand out and then create a marketing strategy that amplifies uniqueness

This is what it takes these days because we are being thrown so much information at lightspeed … and it’s only going to get more complicated and [thicker]. There are benefits to this as well, but we have to keep up as business owners.

Katrina Aronson

Now, you need to figure out: how can you do this without becoming burned out? How can I do this in a way that people are seeing my brand?

Marketing is 50% mindset and 50% strategy

When things don’t work well, you might blame yourself or invalidate your self-worth. Remember to separate yourself and your value as a person from the success of your business.

These transitions can be difficult, especially if you are operating your business online.

I realized that this isn’t about what I’m selling because we have plenty of people who are biting in the real world but now, we’re taking it online and it’s not working, so this isn’t about me as a person, this isn’t an attack on me, this is about how we’re positioning it.

Katrina Aronson

Scrutinize your words because that is what will pull people in or not. A lot of mindset work goes into your marketing. Every single day when you put yourself out there, address how you are going to deal with challenges.

If you’re feeling afraid, what’s that next decision? Are you going to say, “Okay, I’m too afraid and I’m not going to do it” and retract? Or, are you going to say, “I’m afraid, why am I afraid, and how can I get past that?”

Katrina Aronson

In this way, your mindset is a tool that can help you to decrease or prevent burnout. This is where your resilience comes in.

Craft your one-liner

Your one-liner is the story of your bio. Instead of explaining what you do, explain why you do it.

Why do you do what you do?

First, explain your story before you say what you do because it creates interpersonal connections before bringing the business in.

Katrina Aronson

Katrina’s advice to private practitioners

People want to know who you are and a little bit about you, but it doesn’t mean that you need to reveal your life.

Share a little bit so that people can connect with you because it will allow your business to grow.

Useful links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet Sam Carvalho

A photo of Samantha Carvalho is captured. She is the Chief Marketing Officer and Designer at Practice of the Practice. She is the host of the Marketing A Practice Podcast and helps therapists successfully market and brand their private practices.

Sam Carvalho is a graphic designer living in Cape Town, South Africa, with over five years of experience in both design and marketing, with a special interest and experience in the start-up environment.

She has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016 and has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs take their practices to the next level by enhancing their visual branding. She loves working with a variety of clients on design-intensive tasks and is always up for a challenge!

Follow Sam on Instagram to see some of her work. To work with Sam, head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

[SAM CARVALHO] Welcome to the Marketing a Practice podcast with me, Sam Carvalho, where you’ll discover everything you need to know about marketing and branding your business. To find out more about how I can help you brand new business visit www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding. If you’d like to see some examples of my design work, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Samantha Carvalho Design. Katrina Aronson is not your average coach. She comes from the corporate world, but left to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams. In 2013, she started her first business and scaled it to six plus figures with a killer team. In a few years, Katrina burns out and burned it all to the ground, aka sold and got out. She wanted to scale her business without missing out on her life. Katrina has since poured herself into helping other women to reach their revenue goals without burnout, and she’s had the honor of working with a hundred plus women and counting to break through their glass ceilings with marketing as they’re not so secret weapon. Hi Katrina, thanks so much for joining us today. [KATRINA ARONSON] Hi. Thank you so much for having me. [SAM] So obviously we delved a bit into your backstory in your bio there, but can you just share a bit more about how you got to where you are now? [KATRINA] Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I come from the corporate world, so I have that super structure to me as well but I left the corporate world to really figure out what else could light up my heart as a lot of us entrepreneurs do. I followed a passion that has been in me forever to go into fashion. I thought that was my forever place. Learning about it, I actually went to grad school and on the way, I started a jewelry line, which we grew really slowly, and then we opened a brick-and-mortar boutique. So this is before everything was completely online and we grew and scaled and then learned how to do all of that again on social media when that became popular and people were selling things on social media. So we had a lot to take in, a lot to learn. Quite frankly, I didn’t know how to delegate anything very well and I ended up wearing too many hats and not really doing things in a way that were good for my life. I was working way, way too much and I thought that’s just how you scaled a business. I thought, okay, this is just what life looks like having a business. I decided to really take a step back with a lot of support and figure out how I could do this better, leaning into my marketing and really understanding how do I scale my marketing? How do I do this in a way that I don’t have to be on social media 24/7 getting in front of people. It took a lot of quite frankly being humble and accepting a lot of help and learning from the beginning. A lot of stuff that I thought I knew I had to learn better. That’s really when we decided let’s sell this business. At that moment in time, just when I thought, oh my gosh, I don’t have a business anymore people started asking me, would you mind telling me how to start my hotline? Would you help me start my event business? So I was meeting people not fancy for coffee and really guiding them through the beginnings, through scaling and teaching them, oh my gosh, here’s when you hire, here’s when you market, here’s what that looks like. It didn’t take me long before I realized this is the thing that lights my soul on fire. This is it. But I had to go through that really messy journey and make all of those mistakes before I could be on in a place to really help anyone else. So that’s where I am today. I help women to really start, grow and scale their business. Mostly we’re working with women who are growing and scaling at this point and doing it from a place of joy. Believe it or not, that is very possible. Also getting to their revenue goals while they’re living in that joy. [SAM] Awesome. That’s such an awesome backstory. I think it happens to so many people exactly what happened to you when people get serious about starting a business. Because in the beginning you can do it all because it’s small and you’re figuring things out but then obviously as the business grows, you will undoubtedly reach a point where you’re trying to do it all and you just can’t. Like you say, it’s a humbling process and I think people who like to be in control, which is most women probably, struggle to delegate, struggle to let go. So I think it’s probably a lesson that every entrepreneur needs to learn, but it’s also that you can come alongside them and help them through that. [KATRINA] Yes, it’s such a gift to be able to have someone, and believe me, I have someone who guides me as well. That was one of my biggest lessons throughout all of these years is I don’t know what I don’t know. Walking into entrepreneurship is quite exciting, but it can be really lonely because you are supposed to know everything. Or at least, that’s what we present to the world. I know this business, I’m so excited, I have expertise in this one thing, but as an entrepreneur there’s so many facets to business. So it’s quite impossible to be an expert in all of them. So yes, it’s a humbling process. It’s also a beautiful process and you learn a lot about who you are. [SAM] That’s so true. So can you speak a bit into why you have to have a unique marketing strategy for your business? [KATRINA] Yes, so a lot of strategies work. That is just true. If you really believe in the strategy and you put your heart and soul into it and you’re willing to stick with it, hell or high water, it’s probably going to work. You might have to tweak a few things, but what we recognize now is there’s so many people out there selling things because of social media and because of how much we have access to digital marketing these days and the barriers to entry are really low. You can start a business from your living room really, and plenty of people do. So what makes your business special? What makes it really shine? We don’t have to have brick and mortars anymore. We don’t have to, if you’re selling a service, it can be something that’s just out of your home office. No one needs to know how fancy it is. That is a wonderful thing, but is also really important for us as business owners to position ourselves in a way that allows us to stand out and then create a marketing strategy that allows us to amplify that. What I mean is how do you get it in front of the right people over and over and over? What we used to see when I started as an entrepreneur, so a decade ago, was that we needed about seven touch points before someone made a buying decision. This is services, this is products, you needed to see a business about seven times before you said, oh, I really like that business, maybe I will buy something from them. Today, I just saw this stat probably a couple months ago, we are looking at 56 times. So in 10 years we have eight times what it was. It makes total sense though if you think about it. How many times are you scrolling on social media and you see the same ads? This is what it takes these days because we are being thrown so much information at light speed. We’ve never seen anything like this and it’s only going to get more complicated and more thick. There are benefits to this as well, but we have to keep up as business owners, how do I do this in a way that doesn’t burn me out so I’m not on social media constantly and do this in a way that people are actually seeing my brand? Those are two responsibilities we have as business owners. [SAM] So true. I mean, I’m just thinking about myself. I am definitely an online shopper and recently through Instagram. But if I think about it, you’ll see something and you’ll maybe save it and then you’ll of think about it and you’ll maybe forget about it and then you’ll see it again in like a few weeks or a month or two and then you’ll be like, oh yes, and then maybe you don’t need it right now, but then in a few months when it comes to a time when you’re actually thinking about it, you’re like, oh yes, but I saw that one thing. It’s crazy. [KATRINA] It is. They get into your email inbox and suddenly they’re on a different page and oh my gosh, they’re on a podcast interview and all of these things are just seeping into your subconscious even though you thought it was the first time you saw it too. Maybe it’s like the third time you saw it. You don’t really know because you’re just scrolling through things. This is how we go through life these days. Used to be that we would drive by billboards and now we’re driving by billboards, but as we know, that tends to be like lawyers. It’s like a very different ad that they’re running versus online. They know we have to see this so many times now so it’s going to be in your feed if you’re that right, customer a length of times. [BRIGHTER VISION] It’s that time of year, again. My friends over at Brighter Vision are once again kicking off the full season with a month-long digital conference event they call Fall Into Cash. For the entire month of September, they’ll be teaming up with the top brands, consultants, and coaches in the mental health industry to provide you with the best advice, tools, content, podcasts and giveaways, all centered around one main goal, helping you grow your practice and make more money. Plus, in celebration of the sixth anniversary of Fall Into Cash, they’re also offering a very special discount exclusively for Practice of the Practice listeners. From now until the end of the month, they’re offering $20 per month off of any website service plan for your whole first year plus no sign-up fees. That’s a saving of over $200. For more information and to take advantage of this great offer, head on over to brightervision.com/joe. [SAM CARVALHO] So, and can you speak a bit into why marketing isn’t what you think it is? Why it’s actually 50% mindset and 50% strategy? [KATRINA] Oh my gosh, I love this conversation. So marketing, I also have a background in social work, so psychology is really important in my life. I never thought it would really transition into business, but it is probably the biggest thing that I talk about, believe it or not, over strategy. Once we get past the strategy and you have the strategy, it’s you and the strategy, what are you going to do with it? A lot of people will do some of the strategy and then maybe not do the rest or maybe not stick with it. What it comes down to is if you start it, if you’re putting yourself out there, let’s say it’s you face to cam and people are not reacting, it is not a robot. It is. You are going to be affected by this. You are going to maybe take offense, you’re maybe going to feel like people don’t like you, all of these things are going to pass through your brain. So are you in the right mindset to deal with that? What’s coming up for you? Are you really posing the questions to yourself that have to be posed? This is where personal growth is an incredible gift that business gives you because in that moment you can say, well, they don’t like me, or, okay, this isn’t about me, this is about something that I said. So let’s tweak that messaging and try it again. It becomes a game if you allow it to. I definitely am guilty of the former of being really uncomfortable putting myself out there on Facebook groups and sneakily advertising what it was that I was doing, posing it as questions and people weren’t biting. That was really uncomfortable for me because my name was attached to it and I couldn’t hide. It wasn’t like, oh, it’s just the product or it’s just my boutique. This was really about me, my face, my consulting business. That was a scary point in time when I couldn’t hide anymore. But I realized, okay, this isn’t about what I’m selling because we have plenty of people who are biting in the real world, but now we’re taking it online and it’s not working. So this isn’t about me as a person, this is an attack on me. This is something about how we are positioning it. This is something about literally the words that I’m using to try to pull people in. That was really another process I had to go through. So a lot of mindset work goes into your marketing. That’s just one tiny example, but this is every single day when you are putting yourself out there, how are you going to deal with it? If you’re feeling afraid, what’s that next decision? Are you going to say, okay, I’m too afraid I’m not going to do it and retract? Or are you going to say, I’m afraid, why am I afraid and how can I get past that? [SAM] I think that’s especially true for our audience where because I mean, private practice is such a personal thing and for those, especially for those running solo private practices, I mean they are the brand. So I think it’s definitely something that they struggle with in being vulnerable and putting themselves out there in in their marketing, like you said. But I think also what you’re saying is so true because I think it also then helps to avoid burnouts if you make sure that you are in the right mindset, that you are strong enough to face what initially might seem criticism, but like you say isn’t. Because if you’re just being personally offended or the whole time that that’s like breaking you down and drawing from your energy and I think that’s also then eventually what leads to burnout. [KATRINA] Absolutely. A hundred percent. We didn’t talk about this really even 10 years ago and now it’s finally coming to the forefront how important this is. It is about being strong, but really the word is resilient. So how resilient are you and how resilient are you wanting to be? The more resilient you are as a person, we already know that success in life. So of course, it’s going to translate into business. When it comes to marketing these days, this is very different than it was. We are basically required to be personal brands pretty much across the board. That is what we’re seeing. If you are a new brand, if you are just popping up and you are just sharing what it is that you are selling, it’s going to be very hard for you to break into the market. We now want to know who’s behind the brand. We want to know stuff about their life. It’s a very different world. So yes, it’s going to be about you and you can choose to hide and fight. I always think of like a pushing a boulder up a hill or you can choose to be a bit more visible and learn a lot about yourself in the process and it will be uncomfortable, but with the right guidance, and I highly recommend this because it is something that takes another person for you to bounce things off of. There’s times where you’re going to feel really exposed and who do you turn to in that time? You can talk to your mom, but is she going to really understand? [SAM] Katrina, can you speak into how the audience can go about crafting their marketing one liner? [KATRINA] So a one liner is basically the story of your bio. So very quickly going through that, being cognizant of time it starts with why you do what you do. So I’ll give you an example. I could share with you that I am a business coach and a marketing strategist and that is super boring because your brain is just taking in the information and going, okay, that’s what he is. I’m going to put her over here in that pigeonhole. Or you could tell it through story form, which is actually what our brains prefer, and we tend to retain that information a lot better. So instead of telling you what I do, how about I tell you why I do it? It goes like this. So a lot of business owners will get to a place in their business where they feel stuck or they feel like they’ve plateaued. So what I do as a business coach and a marketing strategist is I help them to break through that. So I told you very quickly why I do what I do and then I told you what I do. What that does is it gets your brain firing and interested. Even if this doesn’t relate to you, I bet you have someone in your life that it relates to. So immediately I’m connecting to you as a person and as we know humans really like that connection. You’re tribal beings, that is what we need to thrive. So you’re playing into all of that and it’s a really easy way for you to just have a conversation with someone that isn’t going to fall flat and they’ll immediately ask questions. [SAM] Amazing. Well thanks for giving that. I think that provided a tip straight away for people to go and think about. So that’s awesome. Katrina, if people wanted to get in touch with you or work with you, what is the best way for them to do that? [KATRINA] Okay, amazing. Hop over to my website, which has lots of different ways to get in touch with me, which is super easy, katrinaaronson.com. Will you share that in the show notes? [SAM] Yes, all the links will be included in the show notes. If you guys are on the run while you’re listening to this, then definitely head over to the show notes for links. Katrina, if every private practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [KATRINA] We want to know who you are and we want to know a little bit about you. That doesn’t mean you need to reveal your life. You are not suddenly becoming an influencer. Don’t get freaked out by that. But sharing a little bit so that we can connect with you is going to allow your business to grow in ways that you couldn’t even imagine. [SAM] That’s awesome. Thank you so much for all the value that you’ve added in today’s episode and thanks so much for being on the Marketing a Practice podcast. [KATRINA] Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. [SAM] Thanks again to Brighter Vision for sponsoring this episode. Remember that from now until the end of the month, they’re offering $20 per month off of any website service plan for your whole first year plus no signup fees. That’s a saving of over $200. For more information and to take advantage of their Fall Into Cash offer, head on over to brightervision.com/joe. Thanks for listening to the Marketing a Practice podcast. If you need help with branding your business, whether it be a new logo, rebrand, or you simply want some print flyer designed head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding. If you’d like to see some examples of my design work, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Samantha Carvalho Design. Finally, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on iTunes if you like what you’ve heard. Talk to you soon. Marketing a Practice podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic, Imperfect Thriving, or Faith in Practice, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network. Thanks for listening to the Marketing a Practice podcast. If you need help with branding your business, whether it be a new logo, rebrand, or you simply want some print flyer designed head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding. If you’d like to see some examples of my design work, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Samantha Carvalho Design. Finally, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on iTunes if you like what you’ve heard. Talk to you soon. Marketing a Practice podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic, Imperfect Thriving, or Faith in Practice, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.