BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 19. 

So if you're listening to this in real-time, the world looks very different. It's unprecedented. Things are on lockdown. Thousands of businesses are shut down. And there's a virus that has impacted all of our lives in a very real way. So it's a bit hard to talk about marketing, which will likely look very different for you small business owners right now. But I planned this episode weeks ago, and I really wanted to stick with the plan since I've gotten so many questions about marketing. And I really think that understanding the seven P's of marketing will help you think of marketing in a different way. You know when most people think about marketing they're thinking about just one of the P’s - promotion. But your marketing is a whole lot more. 

So side note, this exercise I'm going to walk you through today is actually just a piece of a much bigger exercise that I take clients through in my Bird's Eye View process. So if you want to be coached through a deep dive of the marketing of your business, book a consultation call with me at birdwilliams.com/consultation. We can get a sense of where you are and in what ways I could help you in that regard. 

For some background, a guy named Jerome McCarthy came up with this concept of the four P's of marketing in 1960. And I remember learning about it in business school as an undergrad at UT, and it was just really fascinating to me. I loved my marketing class. I remember my professor and everything. And more recently there have been three additional P's added. So instead of four, we're going to go ahead and discuss all 7 P's of marketing today. 

So the first one is product or service. So this is the good or service that you're offering to customers. This is understanding what needs this product fulfills, what frustrations it addresses. What makes it compelling to customers so that they really believe that they just have to have it? Also how or why is it relevant today? How is it different from competitors? what makes it unique? 

When we launched The League back in 2013, for those of you who don't know, my husband Terry and I, own a warehouse gym here in Houston, Texas called The League. Back then, in 2013, CrossFit was the huge buzz, but we weren't CrossFit. And I can't tell you how many times we had to explain to people. Yes, this is a warehouse gym and kind of looks like what CrossFit is. But we're not that. We have our own proprietary pack training format. And, you know, Terry had developed this format based off of his work with professional athletes in the offseason. And he had this thought of, I wonder how I could just modify it to work for everyday people, work for the average Joe. I'm just so grateful today looking back on that that we stuck to our guns. Because it could have been really tempting to come and just copy someone else, and do what we saw everyone else out there doing, or what we thought was like a cool fad. But we really believed in what we were offering the world, and we saw the need in it. And I'm so glad we just really stuck with it. Because today PAC(K) training has helped so many people in so many ways. And so, that's just one way to think of marketing your actual product or service. What is a piece of your marketing that’s going to differentiate you in some way? 

Okay, so the second P that we're going to talk about is price. So this is what customers will pay for your product or service, and it takes into account the cost of production. So what is the value of the product or service to customers? Are there established price points for this product or service in the market? How will the price compare with competitors? I get these questions all the time, questions around pricing. There's so many pricing guides out there and I know it's just really vulnerable, almost like putting a value on what you're offering the world and putting it out there in the world and saying like, this is what I think this is worth. There are two ways I tend to look at this. One is to look at your industry or the market and kind of get a sense of where the value of your product or service kind of falls among the competition. So for example, like I said, we had our own proprietary training format called PAC(K) training, and there was nothing like it at the time in Houston. It was high-intensity interval training. It was circuit training. But we had a boutique studio fitness setup. So we looked at 24 Hour and LA Fitness and their rates are super cheap comparatively. And then there was CrossFit and they were much more expensive. At the time they were around $180 a month. Whereas LA Fitness was maybe like $40 or $50 a month. So we thought, okay, well, how do we want to position ourselves in the market? We don't want to be as expensive as CrossFit and we don't really think we need to be. So we priced ourselves initially at $120 a month. It was great. And over time we grew that price incrementally.  Just a side note, it’s more ideal to start with something that you feel really comfortable with and grow over time, as opposed to consistently lowering your prices. That signals a bad sign to the market.

So, that was our strategy in terms of how we priced our services with The League. Now the other way to look at this is to just really think about how much do I need to bring in to make this work. This is especially true when you work in an online business capacity or in a business where you're just kind of valuing your time and expertise. With Bird Williams, I take a very different route. I didn't look at the industry or the market and look at other consultants to see where I should price my services. I kind of just thought about what my goals were and what I need to bring in to be able to support my family. So you have to just really figure out what works best for you. But it has to make sense right. What you can do is say okay well I'm going to price my services five times more than what the market averages. But I'm not offering something in value that's five times more. So it has to make sense. Overall, it is okay to change your prices. But like I said, you want to make sure that you're raising them over time as opposed to lowering them over time. 

If you listen to episode 3 which is “Every Client is Not a Good Client”, I actually talked about how, when we launched The League, we had a first-class free, and it was attracting clients that we did not want. We wanted clients who were committed to their fitness and not just coming from like a free class and not coming back. So we switched things up and it was a real game-changer and it's a great example of how pricing can really affect your marketing because it's going to affect the type of people you're bringing in. So check out that episode. It's a good one. 

All right, so the next P is promotion. This is all the ways you tell your customers about your product or service, and how you then market and sell to them. This is what I mentioned in the beginning of the episode. This is what people typically think about when they think about marketing. It includes your ads or PR, your social media. Maybe there's email marketing or events, speaking engagements, a video series. This is really going to vary based on the business. But you're in 2020. You can get so creative with the different marketing channels you use. If you're a loyal listener you've heard this story and you know that with The League, we're mostly word of mouth and social media, which is free and amazing. 

So I want you to write this down because it's noteworthy. If you don't just think of your marketing as the promotion piece, and you consider all the other P's, then you don't have to worry as much about the promotion, because you're going to have organic growth. If there's a real need for what you're offering, people will experience it and tell their friends and share online, etc. When it comes to promotion, get really comfortable with switching it up, testing multiple things, and seeing what works. But this is not all that your marketing is. It's so much more. It's the product. It's the price. And it's the rest of the P’s that we're about to get into. 

All right. Next is place. So this is how and where your customers will look to see your product or service, and where it's actually sold. So I'm going to break this down for brick and mortar, versus an online business. So let's say first you have a physical store. Think about all of your senses, what your customer will see, taste. Maybe there's a sample you offer. Or they're going to smell when they come into your business. If it's a spa, for example, I love the candles that they have going and kind of set you in the mood. All of that is associated with your place and is a part of your marketing. Every single time someone has told me that our gym smells so good, I want to do a cartwheel. I was so happy to hear that because it was a gym. So things like are your bathrooms clean and really just how can you add value at each turn. 

And then think about the exact location where your customer actually meets the salesperson. When you're at a grocery store, and there's all those magazines and gum and candy in the line before you check out. They're kind of trying to upsell you. There is a marketing strategy right there in terms of their place. They're really just trying to capture the client's attention when they're having to make the decision to buy. Okay. 

And now for an online business, it's possible that with your online business your website matters even more. Even think about speaking engagements, or workshops because those are the best tangible ways for clients to really see what it would be like to work with you. Even if you have a consultation call or an introductory call or meeting. Those are going to be really key when you have an online business and you don't have a physical brick and mortar location, because you're kind of giving the prospective client a sense of what their client experience would be like. Do they like working with you? Do they like your style, your vibe, that sort of thing? And again, you want to think, how can I add value at each client touchpoint, so that every email or questionnaire or whatever kind of engagement they get with you the packages on your website how that looks. You want to try to add unique value at each turn and then think about the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson in this case. We don't have a physical location. So let me give you a photographer for example. Let's say people can book directly from your website, and they're like, wow, this is just so easy and seamless. I love this process right. So you're going to be thinking about when you have that first consultation call, what that process actually looks like. You're going to be putting yourself in the shoes of your client, in terms of how they feel as they're being navigated through this sales process because that's going to bring them closer or further away from wanting to buy with you. You don't just throw it together. It's really thoughtful. Place has a lot to do with your marketing. 

Okay, so the next P is packaging. Note that how you brand your product, and the features it has in the way it’s packaged is actually a part of your marketing. So you've probably heard that people form their first impression about you or your business within the first 30 seconds of seeing you, or seeing whatever it is related to your business. So this is especially important for product based businesses when it comes to packaging. We've all gotten a really nice purse or a little trinket in some packaging that you just like so much that you didn't even want to throw it away. You just wanted to keep the box around or keep the bag around because it was so cute. You know, all of these little touches matter. Think about a handwritten note, for example, that goes a long way. I've gotten gifts or packages where the owner handwrote a note, and it just added a special touch. And you don't have a physical product. This still takes into account your graphic design and your branding, or maybe even like your uniforms for your staff. All of those things are signaling to people coming in contact with your business or your brand. You know the standard that you have in your business. And it's all very impressionable to a potential client. 

Next is going to be positioning. This is kind of like, how does your business look to the world? How do people talk about your business? You know, how others describe what it is that your business does. And this has to do a lot with your branding. So if you don't know what you want people to think of you, then this is going to be really hard to do well. You need to start with thinking about what is that message I want the world to think of my business and then you need to be strategic with your branding and putting that message out. I remember Terry had come home from a trip to Utah, and he met up with others in the fitness industry. And there was a gym owner there who lives in Utah and told him of a conversation that he had with another gym owner who lives in Dallas about how awesome The League Instagram was. And it really just blew our minds because these are gym owners in completely different states. And the fact that they even knew about our business, better yet that they thought highly of our social media marketing was just wild right. And I mean that came with a lot of trial and error over the years. So I'm so glad that we've gotten to the place that we are. But it says a lot about what people think of our business out in the world right. 

Another example is, once we had a friend reach out to us who's an Uber driver and he was like hey, I was driving someone today and they saw my key tag for The League and they said, “Oh are you a Leaguer too”. And they use that terminology, Leaguers, a name that we call our clients. It's like our fitness family. And again it's just those conversations that are happening behind closed doors or away from us and how people are talking about our brand and seeing our brand. It has a lot to do with the positioning of The League and that's super-duper important. 

All right, so the final P is people. And y'all this is my favorite. I'll be honest, people are honestly, the hardest. They really are. But they're also the most important part of this whole thing because it doesn't matter if you have the perfect register setup where people buy if your checkout staff is rude or indifferent. A smile really makes a huge difference. It doesn't matter if your branding is great if the people who are actually facilitating the process aren't fun to work with. I really need to do a whole episode on just this, on the team part, on the people part, because I can even go from interviewing, to training, to onboarding a team. So maybe I'll do like a series one day. But you know I could just go

on and on. Remember, your people are a very crucial part of your success. So invest there. And when you invest in your people, it’s not just you investing into them. It's also you investing into you as a leader. Super-duper important. So don't skimp on that part. Okay. 

So, in summary, you see marketing is much more than just your social media. Social media is just one part of your advertising which is a part of marketing. If you're wondering why your marketing, in quotes, efforts, aren't producing much fruit. Maybe it's because you're just focusing on one little part of it and you need to do a much, much deeper dive into all of the aspects of your marketing. So I mentioned, you know my offer of the Bird's Eye View process. It's something I walk clients through one on one, or we explore all the aspects of your marketing and you leave with a really solid gameplan and marketing strategy going forward. You can go to birdwilliams.com/marketing to learn more. And I'm really excited to work with you if it's something that you're interested in. But even if not, save this episode. Go back and listen through all of it and just pause it after each P after I explain it. And just think, “How can I add value in my place? How can I add value in my positioning? How can I switch up a product to really solve a problem better? Whatever it might be, and just refine and fine-tune your marketing because you want to be able to have a solid game plan when it comes to that so you can kind of just hit the ground running. And so that your efforts aren't in vain.

I really appreciate you for tuning in. And if you like what you're hearing, please please please leave me a review on iTunes. Also, I'll be doing bonus episodes, so make sure to subscribe to Bird Means Business on Apple Podcasts, and follow on Spotify so that you do not miss an episode. And you know, I appreciate it when you share with your entrepreneur friends as well. Tag me, and share the love on social. I'm @heybirdwilliams on Instagram and Facebook. All right, talk to you all next week.