Ep 49 Transcript: Marketing That Actually Works with Candace Huntly

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I am joined by a true powerhouse in the world of marketing and entrepreneurship. I've got Candace Huntly with me today and she is the founder of SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency that's going to help businesses to find their voice through social media, through public relations, through branding and marketing strategies. And her journey to entrepreneurship has been anything but conventional.

She's actually transformed from a career as a professional singer and actor to becoming a leading voice in the marketing world. So she's got a lot of knowledge when it comes to influencer marketing, organic marketing, and she's got a voice in this space that I think I just thought was so important to bring onto the show and to share with this audience. So Candace, welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have this chat. Same. And, you know, we connected online and kind of got to chat and I was like, I got to have this girl.

this woman on my podcast because you've just built a phenomenal business in the marketing world, but you don't just look at it as I am a marketer. Like you are an entrepreneur and you've done all the things that entrepreneurs have done. So you understand the challenges of entrepreneurship. challenges. the challenges. And so one of the things that we sort of talked a little bit about

know, pre-recording is of that balance between the business and the personal. You've talked about how, you know, things are personal for you. like, tell me a little bit more about your thoughts on this, because I think it's really interesting. I think it's really important to share with this audience. Yeah, I think that it's very easy for people to say business isn't personal or keep the personal out of business. It's not emotional. I don't know. But for me, I feel like I am a very emotional person.

everything, I feel everything very deeply. If my client's not happy, you know, if I'm working towards certain goals, whatever it is, I just feel like everything should be internalized. Cause I think that's how we really grow. That's how we get better. It kind of becomes a part of who you are. And so I think it's super important for things to be taken personally. Obviously, I mean, it really depends on how you respond to things.

But I think it's super important. And that's interesting because I'll admit, like I am often telling my clients, like, listen, you know, don't take it personally. Let's say, you know, they put out a proposal to a client and it gets rejected. I think that's one of the biggest gut punches as an entrepreneur. Yeah. Rejection that no. And I mean, they always say like, you have to get a lot of no's in order to get a yes. Sometimes you can't always get yeses. And I was actually, I

This wasn't a unique idea to me. I got it out of a book recently, but I loved this saying though, if you're not hearing, no, you're not asking for enough. And I loved that saying. And so I would love to kind of hear from you a little bit more about like, how would you sit, like, what would you say to someone who's like, my gosh, my proposal got rejected today?

you are frozen.

Yeah, you're frozen. Oh, we're back now. Okay, we're back. So we're gonna have a little bit of editing here. Okay, what was the last thing that you heard? The idea that you got from a book. Okay.

Okay, so one of the things that I actually found out recently or I learned this quote and I posted on social media and I can't take full credit for it because I didn't come up with it. I got it out of a book, but it's actually a really cool idea that if you're not hearing no, you're not asking for enough. And I loved that saying because I feel as though like, if you were, if you're just hearing yes all the time, what should you be asking for? Like, why is it so easy for everyone to say yes? And I want to say like, yeah, okay, I'm sure you're all like,

the most perfect salespeople out there. But the reality is that that's just not true. And especially if most entrepreneurs. So, you I think that we're going to put out these proposals. We're going to hear no sometimes. And it can be bit of a gut punch and it can feel like it's, it's personal. So how do you navigate that as someone who's so, you said you feel everything? How do you feel when someone says no to proposal?

Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this for a long time because of entertainment. I mean, I went for auditions. I have heard no. So it doesn't matter what career you're in. I think you're going to get that. I think, you know, when someone says no, there is that split second of, OK, it's super disappointing. You know, you're really hoping to book that client or get the gig or whatever it is. But I think that when we take a step back and we say, OK, was this opportunity

the best opportunity for me. And more often than not, when I take a step back and I look at it, and sometimes you're privy to information, as you should ask questions if someone says no, you know, sometimes you get the answers. So you say, okay, look who they went with, that's not me.

Or, you know, I actually didn't feel super comfortable when we were doing our, you know, our meet and greet meeting. You know, I don't think it was the best fit. Maybe they were looking for something that was a little out of, too outside of my comfort zone. So I think that it's, and it's not to say that you should always make excuses, but I think it's a really good time to kind of take a step back and say, okay, so they said no, is this a change that I have to make? Or is this just a situation that just wasn't meant for me?

and I'll be a better fit for somebody else. And so I think that if we're asking ourselves the right question, rather than just getting disappointed, it's okay to be disappointed. We all get disappointed. But I think that if you really take it as a learning opportunity, you can either change things up, reposition how you do things, or you can just move on to the next one and see if that goes better for you. So think it's a good opportunity to look at yourself.

Yeah. And I love that. So let's talk about that. So you've got kind of two options here. One is you're looking at what you're doing. You're saying, you know what? This was the perfect opportunity for me, but they said no. So I have done something wrong on my side and not to beat yourself up, but a bit more just a reflection of what was it that where did I miss the mark? Was it about communicating my value? Was it about racing and reality is pricing doesn't matter if you're communicating your value, yada, yada, yada, but

So, you know, there's that to dive into because that's something you of course work with your clients on, on ensuring that the brand message is getting out there. Absolutely. Or on the other side of it, and these are two related things as you're saying though, on the other side of it, we're like, that's not the right opportunity. Then how are we attracting the people that are going to be the right thing? So let's get into that a little bit. How do they dive into those challenges then from a marketing perspective? Yeah, I think, and again, it's always about the questions that you're asking yourself. And I think that, you know,

major milestones or timing throughout the year. It could be seasonal, it could be end of year, beginning of the year, however fiscal year. You should always be looking at what you're doing and looking at your strategy to see what's working, what's not working. More often than not, what I see is that a lot of businesses are targeting just the wrong people in general. Or they think they're targeting one audience, but then you look at the clients and you're like, oh, my clients are all actually part of this group.

So why am I spending all of my marketing dollars? Why am I spending all of my time, all of my effort targeting this group that doesn't necessarily fit for me? And I mean, I'm going through that with my own business right now because we should all take our own advice where, you know, I'm asking myself, am I targeting the right people? And for myself, even though I tell my clients you can't market to everybody, I've been marketing to too broad of an audience. And so I'm now looking internally.

and going through all these exercises and saying, okay, who are my clients? Who do they target? What type of people do I work with? And so sometimes you really just have to look at is my original thought the thought that's actually in place right now or should I make changes there? Right. And I really like there's a couple of things you said that I really like. One is that

You're not saying after every time you get a proposal rejected or after every time a client gives you some negative feedback, you're reflecting, you're doing this instead in a bit more of a strategic way, quarterly or annually or whatever makes the most sense for your business. But I like that too though, because I think that's so important. So many people are like, well, this one person said this.

Well, that doesn't dictate your entire business just because one person knows something. And it shouldn't. make too many knee jerk reactions when it comes, especially marketing and business. know, something bad happens. You're like, I've got to change everything. Whoa. Hold on. And it's interesting to say that because marketing moves at such a different pace than it ever used to. But there's still certain things that remain like I can remember. So back in the day, I'm going to date myself a little bit here. But when I started my business, one of the main marketing mediums was still things like

newspapers, for example. Don't knock newspapers. I work in that area. Okay. So yeah. Okay. So you get it. But like that was kind of one of the main things. And I remember I would talk to someone and they would say, well, I ran an ad this one time and it didn't do anything. I didn't get any business from it. So I never did it again. Well, you run an ad one time. It's not going to work. And obviously we know that in social media, you're not running an ad for five minutes and then assuming it's going to work, you've got to run it. You have to let it, you got to let it breathe.

You've got to let it breathe. And then adjust as, as things go, you know, as opposed to pulling the plug. but nowadays, you know, with the, the digital world marketing does move so quickly. And so the, if I put an ad in newspaper going, going back to this analogy and I needed to change or pull it, I've got to wait a few weeks before I can do that. Yeah. Almost had its advantage because now, like you said, we make these knee jerk reactions. It's so quick and easy to just pull down a post.

revamp it and throw it back out to the world. And then I'm sure what ends up happening is more of a confused brand than actual strategic alignment and consistency and coherence. Yeah. So no, I really like what you were saying though about, taking the time to actually evaluate things. And then let's go back to the idea of marketing to...

everyone versus marketing specifically to your audience. Because this is not the first time we've talked about this on this show, but I love hearing it from a marketer who is like, yep, I was doing the wrong thing. So like, I love that. Tell me more about this. I'm not saying I was completely wrong because I was kind of, I was talking to the people that I should be talking to. It's just more for myself. It's my messaging and how I was kind of positioning myself that I'm kind of rethinking in my head.

But yeah, I mean the reality most people don't have a budget like Coca-Cola or those mega brand Get a product and it's not even small business versus large business. You know, there are larger corporations that marketing dollars have been cut I mean, I feel like I'm gonna mention it but over the pandemic everyone kind of panicked and

I feel like you can't talk about marketing without talking about the pandemic at least once. But I mean, the reality is marketing budgets, they get cut. It's always the first to go. And you need to really understand how to spend your marketing dollars and how to spend your resources. Because remember, budget's not just money. It's time, it's effort. You know, it's your team's time. It's all of those things that go into it. And so if you're targeting too many people,

you're going to blow through those resources really, really quickly and you're probably not going to get any sort of meaningful results. But if you really highly target and you hone in on the people that will buy from you, on the people that should be buying from you, then you're going to find that the results are going to start turning around quicker. Yeah. And I think, you know, what I hear from most of my clients is there's just too many things to do. How do I know which things

to focus on? so going back to what you were talking about about cutting marketing budgets. OK, so I mean, I know when I first started my business, I had a shoestring budget for marketing. But this was also back in 2008 when you could kind of do, I don't want to say you could do more for less, but there was less opportunities out there. I didn't have to be on 16 social media platforms, for example. You still don't have to be on 16 social media platforms. Exactly. OK, so this is what I'm asking. It's like if someone's like, listen, I only have so much time.

like a very set amount of time, a set amount of dollars. And I know I need to cut back on some of the things that I'm doing in terms of marketing because either I can't afford it or I just don't have the resources for it. How do they figure out where best to spend their time and their energies? Yeah, this is a question that I get a lot, especially, I mean, when I talk about marketing strategies, it's always about scaling for different sized budgets as well. And a lot of what I do is scalable. So, I mean, we can cut things back, we can grow it.

And what I like to do and what I always suggest and again you can do this, you know, it's a living breathing thing throughout the year I always suggest creating a list of all the things that you're doing And you can prioritize them So the most important things should go at the top of the list the least important at the bottom and you know you decide what's most important by looking at the efficacy of each of the things that you're doing so the things that are working really really well the things that you have to have done

those go at the top of the list. And then you cut the fluff. So if you don't have the budget for it, maybe you just don't do that event this month, or you don't do that event this quarter. And that's not to say that you'll never do it, because the idea is if you're using marketing effectively, you should be growing your business. And so you can always come back to it. But even I mean, at the end of the year, or at the end of a quarter, I always like to say you should be doing some sort of marketing review. And it doesn't have to be

really in depth every time, but you should be looking at what's working and what's not working. So remember, just because you started on one social media platform doesn't mean you have to stay on it forever. You know, you can shut it down. And I know a lot of people have trouble with that. We recently got off X as a business because it wasn't serving us. I know other marketing agencies that it works really well for them.

But for us, it just wasn't doing anything. So we were looking at the time that we were spending and it just didn't make sense. So we stopped posting on X and it felt weird. And it's gonna feel weird when you cut things out of your strategy. But the reality is again, you're working towards that growth. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, that, that's so important that you're prioritizing which items should get the most attention. And I think it can be hard though too.

I know I was speaking with my, actually with my mom the other day and was talking about how kind of like the phone just ringing off the hook, business is booming right now. And I was talking about how I'm looking to outsource some of the marketing tasks again. I've got some of them are outsourced. had some previously outsourced, brought them back in-house, you know, the old story and looking to outsource them again. And she says, well, why would you invest in marketing if business is so busy? So let's talk about that for a minute.

So think there's two things here. One is I think that people misunderstand what marketing is. Marketing is not ad campaigns, which is how people often think about marketing. So I want to kind of like, if you can help define what marketing is. But then the other thing is like, how many people do you see? you know, is this an issue that you see where they're like, business is good. Let's stop marketing. business is slow. Let's start marketing. Like, how do they maintain like a balance and all of that? So let's start with the definition of marketing though. Let's go back to that.

Yeah, this is an interesting one because I also teach marketing at Laurier and it's one of those things where it is the first thing people think of as ads. But marketing is so much more than that. It's, you talk about the four P's in marketing if we're going to get really, really kind of old school foundational, but you know, the product price, place and promotion.

You have to have a product. So it's your product you're developing. It could be a service. It could be the idea that you're developing. That's all part of your marketing. any new packages that I add for my business is all part of that, you know, that product development, how much you're going to charge, you know, where you're going to sell it. And it could be online. It could be in store. It could all of those things you have to consider. Then the promotional aspect of it, you know, so it's any sort of

effort that you're making to communicate what value you bring to the table. I mean, all of that goes into marketing. So a lot of people think, okay, well, you know, I have to advertise, but you don't necessarily have to advertise right off the hop. You know, you should work on, you know, building a brand, talk about your messaging, you know, figure out what story you're telling, figure out who you want to tell it to and who's going to actually listen and buy from you. All of that stuff.

It has to go into everything you're doing before you can go public with what you want to do in full. Right. And that was a very concise way to sum it up. And I so appreciate that. So now again, going back to the whole, okay, I've got businesses boom, I'm going to scale back, businesses slow, going to start marketing. How do we find that balance? Yeah, I think a lot of people are, and I'm going to say it. I am going to say it.

A lot of women are afraid of growth in their business because it can feel overwhelming. And sometimes we're very apologetic for the growth and the success that we want. So I said it, just got that. Yep. And you're not wrong. You're not wrong. It's so true. And I think part of that is that, yeah, like I think part of that is as women, want to say, we want to say yes to things we really don't like saying no to things.

And then in addition to that, I'm not just talking about business. Like when you're saying yes to things in our business, in our mind, we're thinking, what might I have to sacrifice in my personal life? What other personal business do I have? Yeah. I mean, you know that you're mother. You know that better than anyone, right? It's a hard one. I feel the mom guilt all the time. but yeah, so I'm getting back to the, we can talk about mom guilt in a minute. I always love talking about my daughter.

But yeah, I mean, we're afraid of growth. And so sometimes business is good. We're thinking, we're in the thick of it. We're not thinking about what the next step is, but you have to remember that nothing happens in a vacuum. well now, but what happens tomorrow? What happens next month? What happens, you know, six months down the line when these projects are finished or if you lose a client or sales are slow. And so,

If you're only starting marketing when sales are slow, then you're starting marketing too late because you should always have that pipeline. It should be continuous. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can scale back, but you should never stop marketing. But you should always be thinking about growth always. And I think that's a really important point though of like, yeah, I mean, yes, you can scale things back, but that doesn't mean like you're not shutting down your website. You're not doing nothing. You're not

saying I'm going off of social media for good or anything. It's just a matter of, yeah, how you're organized. Consistency is your best friend when it comes to marketing. I have to about that a Say it one more time for the people in the back. Consistency. Perfect, I love it, thank you. And so one of the things that I talked about when I introduced you, and I think people are probably like, when are they gonna get to this part of it? Because you mentioned like you work with

influencer marketing, PR type stuff, and I'm sure that your background really assists you in this. I you know it better than anyone. So I think everyone wants to tap into the influencer market. Either they want to be one or they at least want to be aligned with one. Yeah. Yeah. How do they get started there?

So if you want to be one, you're building a brand. mean, that's plain and simple. Influencers, we've gotten past the point where it's just some sort of social thing. They have built individual businesses. They are their business. So if you want to be an influencer, you're starting a business, period. So the same rules apply if you want to be an influencer as it does to any sort of commerce business or anything like that. But if you want to connect with influencers,

And this is the same, any sort of PR. So influencers, we're talking to media, we're talking just anything and anything in business, the same rule applies as if you're connecting with your customers. It should always come down to the relationship that you're building with them. It should never be, it should never feel one-sided. And so for influencers, you need to interact with them, interact with their content, comment.

Send direct messages. It shouldn't always just be about the sales pitch. When I first started in the industry back in 2011, it was mostly blogs. And that was kind of my first foray into influencer marketing. And it was kind of the wild, wild west. There were no rules. We were working with an influencer who was telling us the most outrageous things that we should be doing for people that we were working with.

And, but you know, was, that was what it is, was at the time. Now we have a lot more rules and regulations that kind of put us into a box a bit. But I think the biggest thing, I get to know them. Don't just blanket pitch. Pitching more people doesn't necessarily mean it's a better campaign. Don't always focus on the bigger influencers. Sometimes those micro influencers with a few thousand followers.

Sometimes they actually have better engagement rates than some of the larger celebrity accounts. So, I mean, I've been working in the industry since 2011 and I've watched some of these influencers grow their follower accounts. And I've worked with them when they were smaller and kept up with them because their engagement rates are great. I consider some really good friends and I'm connected with them, and we talk regularly.

So I think again, the big thing is what kind of relationship are you looking to build? You have to invest in that. You have to invest the time. It can't just be a, oh I found this influencer. I'm just going to go and pitch them and just leave it at that. You need to interact. Yeah. And I also really like what you were saying though about not focusing on the number of followers that they have and focusing more on the engagement because it's so true. I was actually speaking with someone recently and of course I can't recall who it was, but they were saying how

this one reel really blew up. was Lorna Costa was on the podcast a couple of months ago and she was saying how, you know, one of her reels kind of blew up and she's got like 10,000 followers that she just didn't really even want. They're not engaged followers. They weren't the right kind of followers. So sometimes it can actually work against you to have things really blow up on you. yep. It's a vanity metric. It's vanity.

That's all it is. Right. But I have definitely found even some of the guests that I've had on this show that have followers of even less than a thousand people, but they're super engaged. I mean, if you've got a thousand people who genuinely want to see your content, isn't that better than having 20,000 followers where people are just like kind of scrolling by like, okay, yep. Yeah. And if you take it back to the marketing aspect, if you're selling something, which if you have a business, you know, you're selling something, whether it's product service idea, um, you know,

you want someone to buy from you. So if you have a bunch of followers or if you're connecting with a bunch of people, but nobody's buying from you, then you're investing in the wrong marketing tactics. Absolutely. That's so true. I know. So, okay, so let's go back to because we did, we did kind of touch on the mom thing. And how much you love talking about your daughter. And I love having moms on this show because, I shouldn't say just moms, but I mean, like just

parents and caregivers as well. Like anyone who's responsible for another human being, it's a whole different work-life balance. I can speak to this as someone who, I don't have children. I do have four cats, of course, that's a big I a big responsibility. It's a big responsibility. But I was also a caregiver for my dad before he passed away a couple of months ago. So I'm familiar with trying to feel like you're doing

the right things for the right people at the right time, not ignoring your business, because that's also, it's a child that needs nurturing too, and in dealing with actual human lives. So how do you balance all of that? I don't, no kidding. So Aurora was home with me for the first three, three, three and a half years. So I, and I didn't take mat-leave leave. If you can take mat-leave take mat-leave but I did not.

you know, she came with me everywhere. She came to meetings. She, did baby wearing at trade shows. It didn't matter if it was, you know, parenting related or not. I was lucky in that I did work with a lot of clients, like I, the baby show and a lot of other people that I worked with that they didn't really care. I did lose out on a few opportunities because my daughter was with me. And so again, one of those things.

they said no and you you find the reason out and you're like that wasn't the right opportunity for me then. yeah so I mean now she watches me work and her desk is set up next to mine so if she's home from school she sits on her desk I set up my desk. You know I have so many videos of her copying me on the phone so she has her phone voice and you know like she says you know take a picture let's post it on Instagram like

So she's very, I'm very much raising like a mini version of myself today. My own fault. But I love this though, because you know, let's talk about this. As long as she's getting, like it's not as though she's watching you serving everybody else and you're not serving her. You're serving her as well. So she's seeing everything that you're doing as a positive thing. She's not resenting the work that you're doing. She sees as a positive thing and something that's.

influencing her and motivating her to want to be or emanate that in some way. that's something that to me, I think you should be incredibly proud of that because that's a pretty beautiful thing to be able to raise. And you're basically raising the next leader, right? And that's you know what? That's what I'm hoping. And I have to say, like as as parents, I mean, it's we're always hard on ourselves. So I'm constantly wondering if I'm doing enough or, you know,

You know, upset that I'm working and you know, she's probably wanting me to play with her. So I'm constantly doing that. And someone said to me the other day, they're like, you do so much with her. but I mean, so I guess it's just kind of, again, reframing how you're thinking about it. But I think that mom guilt is always, or parent guilt. I mean, I can only speak as a mom, but the mom guilt is very real. And I think sometimes I have a harder time with that.

than actually finding that balance, even though it is incredibly stressful. I I always like to say I work like a split shift. So drop her off at school, I come home, I work, pick her up, and then I'm working at night, you know? So it's, you have to make those adjustments and it's just what life looks like right now, I guess. So it's kind of, you know, it's a picture of where we're at. But I think though, you know, there's always so much focus on

what's called work-life balance. And one of the things that I teach with my clients is I call it a work-life integration. So how do we get that integration? Because the reality is you can't separate the two and you end up with guilt whenever you're trying to. So let's integrate them, but let's do it in a way that feels authentic and feels less sacrificing. You don't want to feel like you're sacrificing your business for your daughter.

and you don't want to feel like you're sacrificing your time with your daughter for your business. how exactly do you them? And that's why love when you're saying how her desk is next to yours. So she's getting messy, but it's there. She's getting money and me time, even if it's not, you know, a focus time, which I know you're also giving her focus time. the point is she gets more of you by integrating it in that way, too. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I honestly, I also think it's it's.

It's kind of funny that she understands certain aspects of marketing as well. you know, she, just, want her to know that she can grow up and be whatever she wants. She can do whatever she wants. You know, it changes daily and, I'm okay with that. She's six. So she can, you know, look at me. I mean, as an adult, I've changed careers three times. So, so yeah. So you get it. And I mean, and that's the thing though. I think, you know, you're a bit hard pressed to find someone.

who's an adult who hasn't changed careers at least once or twice. And there's so much more acceptance to that. There's so much more fluidity when it comes to that. And it's considered more of an evolution as opposed to like, oh my gosh, did you hear this person's doing this now? Like, it's more like, I see you've transitioned into this. That makes sense, your personality, given this experience. You take those lessons, you pull on them and you...

You take one or two of them into the next thing with you and you expand on it. You know? Yeah. I like talking about it, like reframing. like that. Reframing. I just reframed my skillset. It's perfect. Yeah. But it's so true though. I mean, like heck, when I was in university, so first of all, I to university for math and now I do interior design and business coaching. So, you know, took a little bit of a detour.

But when I was in university, I also did a lot of bartending. That's what paid for my schooling. And I bartended through starting this career as well. I went back to it. And there are so many transferable skills from my hospitality days that I can continue to draw on. I was in the service industry for many, many, many years. I won't even say how many, but I miss it sometimes. It's definitely...

the talking and you know, I, I was a server. So it's the constant. I mean, you're selling, that's what you're doing. You're, you're talking about your values. So again, most people don't think about those transferable skills, but, people often say like, Oh, I'm going to leave it off my resume. And I, well, if you don't have the experience, then talk about it, but talk about it in a different way. It's again, it's branding. It's always branding. I think that's also a key thing when it goes back to the branding, think, you know, people will often,

You probably see this sometimes, the terrible bios that just give their life story of once upon a time I was doing this and then I did this and then I did this. And no one cares to be perfectly, I'm sorry if I'm being blunt, but no one cares. But when you can relate it to why you can help someone, if you're saying, like for me, using my math background, I talk about bringing a data-driven analysis and systematic approach to my coaching, to everything that I do.

but it doesn't mean that I'm doing math problems. Don't get me wrong, I do love spreadsheets, like, so I am doing math problems sometimes, but that's not the whole core of what it is that I'm doing. So, you know, we all have our things. do love, I love doing a spreadsheet. But yeah, so the point is that you've got to relate it back though, like, why doesn't work unless it's telling a story that's relatable. And again, going back to, you know, what you were saying about pitching to influencers, about pitching to your clients.

You have to be able to engage with them and connect with them in a way that means something to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. It always comes down to the meaningful interactions that you have. And if you don't have that connection, I don't think it's a good fit. You know, when I launched Songbird, that was a big thing for me. I had seen transactional agency work. I had been a part of it and I didn't want that anymore. And so...

I mean, I would say I've had the pleasure and the privilege of working with some incredible people since I launched in 2013. And people have been with me for many years as well. And I think that it's so important to, you're right, have that meaning behind it and needs to be there. When you've built a phenomenal business. And so tell us a little bit more about what does it look like for someone to work with you? What is it that your clients are experiencing when they're working with you?

I mean, it varies. It depends on experience. But for me, it's important for my clients to understand what we're doing. So education is always kind of a part of it. You can't really ask for what you want or ask for what you need if you don't know what you need. And so I think that having that transparent communication on a day to day and meeting my clients where they are is super important.

you know, if we're doing social media, they should understand why we're making the choices that we're making. They should understand why we're on X platform versus Y platform and why we're not on 16 platforms. I never recommend that by the way. But yeah, so I think that, you know, you know, the day to day, really depends on,

what I'm doing with a client because sometimes influencer marketing is very different than it is if we're doing social media. Social media is usually more ongoing and there's more touch points in terms of the content and what we're posting or if I'm ghost writing articles for clients for placement and media. Sometimes it can be media training if we've got upcoming interviews. So if they're gonna be on a podcast or if they're gonna be on CTV news or whatever the news platform is,

Sometimes certain clients need more coaching than others because they're nervous. So it really just depends on the client and I always like to meet them, like I said, where they are and what their needs are. I've had so many people come to me and say, told me I needed this, it was gonna cost this much and I'm sitting there going, well, you don't actually need that. And again, it comes down to what questions are you asking?

Are you educated? Do you need to be more educated about what you're doing? I would rather educate someone than just have them pay me money. Because in the long run, they're not going to be happy. Yeah. So with that in mind, what stage is someone coming to you? Like if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, I could definitely use some marketing help. How do they know that they're going to be a good fit for working with you? What stage are they at in their business?

so honestly, I'm working with clients that are at various stages right now. I have some clients that are established, they're corporate, some of them are international corporate. And those ones are generally ones that I work with on an ongoing basis. It's long term, they just pass it off to me and my team and we kind of act as their marketing team. You know, and the opposite end of the spectrum, if someone's just getting started, you know, we do go through a lot of actionable stuff.

in the free consult that I do because then it helps you to kind of make a decision whether you actually want to pull someone on to help you. But I find that, you know, at that opposite end of the spectrum, there's also, you know, coaching, marketing coaching that can happen as well. And so we do kind of that coaching package or a starter kit to get you set up on social media so you understand what you have to actually do and how to do it on a day to day basis without eating up all of your time.

And so this is kind of the beauty of it as I do work at opposite ends of the spectrum, just by nature who I come across. Initially, I was only working with the larger clients that were kind of more established. And then I did see a need with some of the smaller businesses that couldn't necessarily afford to pay someone to take it off their hands. But they did need someone to help them build a strategy or

they needed someone to do a really quick, small kind of media outreach for them so they could get some of that buzz generated around, know, quality time and stuff like that. So there is kind of the opposite ends of the spectrum, it, so I would say it's never, in my case, I don't know how anyone else is, but in my case, it's never a bad idea to reach out. Yeah. And I mean, you did say you meet your clients where they're at and that's perfect explanation of you doing exactly that.

And I have said this before on this podcast, but I will say it again because I think it merits repeating. Most entrepreneurs are not marketers. So if you are listening to this, because I hear from my clients all the time that think that they need to be better at marketing and they need to be better at the sales aspect of things. And the reality is that if you work with a professional, they can help you with the tools and the resources that you need to be impactful. Absolutely. You don't necessarily have to...

offload everything as you're saying. You don't have to necessarily offload at all, but if you don't have a clear brand identity, if you're not clear on what your marketing messaging is, if you're not clear on who your clients are, you're not going to create something that other people want to buy. And I can say experience when I, when I first launched my home staging business back in 2008, I saw such a need in the marketplace. And I was like, I'm going to launch my website and people are just going to start calling me. And I literally, when I hit launch on my website was like, okay.

Uh huh. Yeah. Just sitting there waiting. Just like, I don't know if I really expected the phone to ring, but I remember this moment of like, this is so exciting. It's live. And the phone didn't ring. it was weird. anticipation. It was wild. Like there, people were just waiting for me, right? But the reality was that like, I was just like, cool, I'm a home stager, put it out there. Because everybody needs my services, but I didn't explain what it was that I did.

what it actually looked like. This is back in 2008. No one knew what home staging was in my area. But aside from that, they didn't understand why they needed it. They're like, I've been selling houses for 30 years and I've never used a stager. So why do I need you? And I learned the hard way of what it took to actually get my message out there and spent two years spinning my wheels. So if you are an entrepreneur, you are listening to this, you are thinking I'm missing the mark. People aren't calling me. I'm not getting sales.

I've said this before, I will say it a thousand more times until you hear me. You've got to go back to the actual strategy. You got to back to the roots on this. So call Candace she's going to help you. So Candace has got a fantastic offer for everyone here. So you are offering a free consultation and then they can receive 15 % off of any small business package. And that's valid for the next month from when this episode is airing.

Yes. Amazing. And to get that, just go to, and we'll put this in the show notes, of course, but they just go to songbirdmarketing.com/small-biz-packages. Yes. Cool. Absolutely. Awesome. Okay. So based on everything we talked about today, Candace , if there is one takeaway, someone listening to this episode, if there is one action point that they're going to take away from this episode, what do you want that to be?

You don't have to be everywhere and you're not going to be for everyone. And so your marketing, cut the fluff, prioritize, prioritize your target audiences. Not everyone's for everyone. That was so perfect. There's the sound bite right there. Well, listen, you know what? I so appreciate you joining me today, Candace . This has been such an incredible conversation. Thanks for having me. I feel like we could talk for hours more. I know.

That was so lovely. Thank you. And listen, if you are listening to this episode and you, this is resonating with you and you are thinking this is amazing stuff. First of all, reach out to Candace, of course, and book that call, but also be sure to like us, leave a review and don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite platform. And of course, as always, the best way to really show your support and support of your fellow female entrepreneurs is to share this episode with someone that you know could get some help from it. So I hope that you will do that until next time, everyone keep thriving.