[00:00:00.120] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I see you out there. You are not marketing your business and you need a swift kick in the butt to get back to marketing. In this episode, I'm speaking with Taylor, the founder of Engy, all about how you can get up off your ass and get back to marketing your business.

[00:00:21.200] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

You're here to grow a business, but not just any business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose, a business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life. I'm Candice Coppola, published author, business coach, and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques that will help you build your business or your dream business. This is the power in purpose. Hey there, friend. It's your host, Candice. Welcome back to another episode of the Power and Purpose podcast. If you're okayoday, I am joined by my friend and marketing expert whiz goddess, Tayler Cusick Hollman from Enji. She's the founder of NG, an incredible new marketing software helping wedding pros and creative entrepreneurs market their business. S he's joining me today to talk all about how you can restart the marketing engine in your business. I've been looking around recently. I've been listening to the women in my programs, Planner's Playbook, and Wedding Pro Insiders. I've been having lots of conversations.

[00:01:52.310] - Candice Coppola (Host)

O ne thing that I am seeing is fatigue in marketing in the wedding industry and also people taking extended breaks from marketing to the point where we're in a pickle now in your business where you're missing out on sales, your sales are down, and we need to restart these marketing engines and get you back to marketing your business. But listen, it can be really difficult getting back into the swing of things, just like going back to the gym after a long break or going back on a diet. Getting back into marketing can feel really challenging. And so my guest today, Taylor from Tailored Media, Source Co, and Enji is going to give you the pep talk you need so that you can create some actionable and easy steps to get back to marketing. Here's the deal. If you feel like you've fallen off the wagon, today's episode is going to be the pep talk you need. Now, if you're not familiar with Taylor, she is a marketing consultant and a small business builder. She's also the founder of Enji, an exciting new startup that launched just a few days ago. You might recognize her from her other companies, tailored media and designs and sourced co.

[00:03:11.010] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Her newest endeavor, Taylor is taking everything she's learned over the last decade of helping small businesses, many of which are wedding pros with their marketing and design, to build a suite of online marketing tools that fit your lifestyle and make sense for you. Long story short, tailor is a marketing wizard. And I've actually seen her wizardry in some of my own clients who have hired Taylor to map out a custom marketing plan for them. And she's taken all of these years of experience and she's brought it into a marketing software that is an intelligent enough to help you create a marketing strategy for your wedding industry business and has all the tools you need to take action on that marketing strategy. So, my friend, are you ready to get out of your marketing rut? Are you ready to get back to marketing your business and to make marketing your small business easier? I can't wait for you to listen to today's episode. Let's get into my interview with Taylor. Taylor, welcome to the show. Hello.

[00:04:15.380] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

I'm so excited to be here, Candice, really. I feel like a long time coming because we've been circling the universe of the internet, and it's so great that we're finally colliding.

[00:04:26.760] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yes, I've had Taylor on my guest wish list forever. So it feels so good to have you on the show today as our guest to help us get up off of our ass and get back to marketing our business. I feel like this is going to be a come to Jesus talk for all of us to get some motivation and gumption to get back in the game.

[00:04:49.950] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

I hope so. I hope I think you and I are similar that we're both a little bit like tough, lovey coaches in our style. So I hope people are ready for it because I'm definitely ready to bring it. I've got all the things to say to really get people off their fucking asses.

[00:05:06.000] - Candice Coppola (Host)

And get back to marketing their business because FYI, guys, spoiler, marketing your business is really important. Yeah. Very important. Yeah. All right, so let's start with a pep talk before we go into all your marketing tips and how we can get back in the game and what we should be focused on when it comes to our marketing. For the person listening who has just fallen off the marketing wagon, they haven't posted on Instagram in months, they haven't updated their blog in years. It says 2019 was their last blog post. They've fallen off the wagon and it shows in their sales. They're not making the money they should be making. And also there's a retraction in the wedding industry, so it might be hitting them really hard right now where their numbers are super down. But regardless, what would you say to the person who needs to get up off their ass and start marketing their business again?

[00:06:01.510] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

You put it the best in a recent podcast episode that I listened of yours, and you have to show up. You have to show up. You have to show up. You have to show up. And people, for some reason, people are so motivated to show up for their clients every day. You all bend over backwards for your clients. You literally kill yourselves. You're up super late. You do all the things. But for some reason, there is a huge disconnect between how wedding pros show up for their clients and then how they show up for their own businesses. When we talk about showing up, you have to show up for yourself to maintain your physical and your mental health. You have to show up for yourself to maintain the relationships. You have to show up for everything that's important to you. So marketing is that business version of like, Hey, this thing is really widely important, so you got to show up. Because when push comes to shove, if you build it, they will come is total bullshit. It's not true. You can't just build something and people start flooding in across the proverbial doors. You can't wait for clients to come to you.

[00:07:15.670] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

You have to go out there and get them. That's your responsibility as the business owner. You have to go out there and get your clients. If you don't market your business, you're honestly setting yourself up for a lot of failure. I know that's like, so hard, right out the gate.

[00:07:33.580] - Candice Coppola (Host)

We don't want to fail. We don't.

[00:07:36.440] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Want to fail. But if you don't market your business, marketing sits at the tip top of the rest of your business. When you don't do it. It's just bad news bears from there on out. So the feel good quote out of all of this is when you show up for your business and you show up for your people, they will start to show up for you.

[00:07:59.390] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I couldn't agree more. And I appreciate how you highlighted how we show up for our clients, but we're not willing to show up for our own business in our own marketing to help capture the clients that we're dying to serve.

[00:08:17.440] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

I'm a proponent of therapy, so I think that everyone needs to be in therapy for whatever reason. But there is this very strange disconnect in how much people want to please their clients, but they won't put even a level of energy that matches that. They refuse to put that back into themselves. I don't understand that. I think that's going to be one of the big white whale questions that marketers and people like us are trying to help people solve because I will continually spend way too much time thinking about the answer to that. Why is there that disconnect? But it's important to recognize that it's there.

[00:09:00.350] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I agree. I've heard that people pleasing is rooted in perfectionism and that we focus so heavily on pleasing others and wanting to make others happy and going to the ends of the earth to make sure our clients feel well taken care of, many times crossing our own boundaries because of our perfectionism.

[00:09:22.180] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

This doesn't need to turn into a therapy session, but it's also tied to some low self esteem. Again, therapy for everybody because I think there are just reasons that are sitting in here that really facilitate people treating themselves less than they treat their clients.

[00:09:43.170] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I found that one of the reasons why people tend to back away from their marketing, I mean, there's lots of reasons, but one of those reasons is the fear of failure, right? Failure in their business, failure in their marketing. And what's interesting about that is if your fear of failure is getting in the way of you actually showing up and marketing your business, you're failing. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, right?

[00:10:05.520] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

100 %, which is why it's so ironic. I don't know if people don't realize that or they won't accept it. But whichever camp you sit in, I want you to either realize it or I want you to start by realizing that and then accept it and then stop.

[00:10:23.880] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yes, 100 %. So what is our first step to get our marketing back on track and just restart the engine. I think this is probably the hardest part for people is just getting back in the game. It can feel so hard. And listen, there's lots of emotions and lots of feelings lurking around there, too. But we just need to take a step. We need to do something. So for the person listening who's like, Okay, I get it. I need to get up off my ass. I need to market my business. If I'm not going to talk about it, who's going to talk about it for me? No one. I get it. But it's hard. What do I do first? How do I make my comeback? What do I do first?

[00:11:03.090] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Well, the first thing you do, I have so many friends in the wedding industry, and I say this with the most love that I could possibly say with it, but you guys overthink everything. For some reason, objectivity goes out the door. I think that that's because wedding pros put so much of themselves into their work. I do the same. But if you've fallen off of the wagon, the first thing you should do before you do anything tactical, the first thing you should do is release yourself from the thought that the whole world is watching. Nobody cares, guys. Nobody cares. I am sorry.

[00:11:45.430] - Candice Coppola (Host)

No, nobody cares. No, not unless you something drastic happened in your life and you took a break and you made an announcement and you're coming back into the world. But if you fell off the marketing wagon because you got busy, you got bored, you got scared, you got whatever, you don't need to make one of those huge, Hey, guys, I haven't been around in a while posts. Nobody really noticed that you were gone. I hate to say that, but it's true.

[00:12:13.110] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

It's super true. So like, hey, if you get a massive zip on your face, you're not going to be like, Hey, guys, sorry, I've got this massive zip on my face. Please excuse me. So don't do that when you fall off the marketing bad week. Just get started again. Literally, rip the bandaid off, just start because there's no perfect time, so there's no excuse to wait for it. So after you get over that hurdle, the next thing is to just make a plan. And this could be as simple as just, what am I going to do next week? If you're someone that's really feeling overwhelmed by marketing, what am I going to do next week? And create a plan that's really easy and approachable for yourself. Don't set these super insane expectations that you're going to do a real every day and not a good way to set yourself up for success. But if you are not feeling as intimidated by the thought of getting back on the marketing wagon, then sit down and create, Here's my plan for the month. That's really one of the best things that you can do for yourself in general is once you have a plan, then it just becomes a matter of executing on that plan.

[00:13:28.070] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Then like I said, you and I are like, just rip off the freaking bandaid. Don't pick a date that's three months out. Like, oh, yeah, I'll start there because it feels better. It looks better. It's the right period of time. Pick a date that makes you feel uncomfortable because that's where If you're not feeling uncomfortable, you're probably not growing. You're probably not pushing yourself to be a better version of whatever facet of yourself you need to grow in. So do that. Then front load as much of the work as you humanly can. Do your hair and makeup for one day or don't. Most of the time I show up on social media, I look like a hot mess, so it's fine. Just get yourself in front of the camera in whatever way, shape, or form you're comfortable with, and prerecord a few things. Pick out a few tops, switch through them so that it looks like you did it on different days, get on a social media schedule or schedule some things out. Then from there, it's really a factor of committing to the work because you and I can lead the proverbial horse to water, but we can't force it to drink.

[00:14:42.600] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

That commitment and drive has to come from within the business owner.

[00:14:48.170] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, I agree. Listen, there are people out there who are less talented than you are. The reason why they are ahead, maybe financially or with brand recognition, is because they're putting themselves out there. And that should make you angry. It should make you upset. Yeah.

[00:15:07.490] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

That's the one form of jealousy, business related jealousy that I think is a good one because it really does light that fire. If you're not getting angry about it, then basically you don't care about your business anymore.

[00:15:25.190] - Candice Coppola (Host)

That's the other conversation which we can have. I mean, it does happen, right? That is something to evaluate if you're not marketing your business because you don't love the work anymore. I've been there myself, so I totally understand what it's like to be out of love with the work you're doing. And then you're there for everything is suffering, including your marketing. But if you love your work and you want more of it, well, we need to get this going. And I love your tips about just letting go of any way you might feel about it, any regrets you have, any guilt you might feel, and also what people are going to think because nobody's thinking about you. You're thinking about you, but nobody else really is. And then to make a plan, which I think is where people probably get hung up next. And so I want to ask you some questions around creating a marketing strategy, a system for marketing. And my next question then is, first, just how many marketing channels do you think we should have? There's so many options. This is a place where people get hung up. They go down rabbit holes.

[00:16:28.900] - Candice Coppola (Host)

It gets crazy. Based on your expert opinion for wedding pros, what is the right amount of marketing channels?

[00:16:37.550] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Honestly, the stat that I found pretty recently was that 47 % of small business owners are running marketing completely on their own. Everyone who's feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to do when it comes to marketing their business, you are not alone because basically one in two people is doing this all on their own, which is really mind blowing in my opinion because we all feel like, how is that person showing up in all of these places? They must have help. They must be doing blah, blah, blah. Maybe they do, but also maybe they're just showing up really consistently on the few channels that they picked. The reality is most business parties of one really can't have a greater capacity to pay the right level of attention to more than three marketing channels at one time. You definitely don't want to just pick one because that's terrible and that's just putting all of your eggs in one basket. I'm looking at every single wedding pro out there who only markets their business on Instagram. I'm glad that this is on video because you guys get to see all of the facial expressions and hand gestures that normally people don't get to experience.

[00:17:54.870] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

But that's the face that I'm making with that. When we're talking about if the realistic capacity is to think about two or three marketing channels, then what you need to do is, A, what are the ones that are most impactful and fruitful in the wedding industry? There are six, in my opinion, and I'd love to hear if you agree or you have any additions or subtractions to this list. But referrals, I have yet to meet a wedding pro who doesn't tell me that referrals give them their best quality leads, whether that's from past clients or professional referrals. Then it's social media, it's blogging, p intrest, some form of advertising, whether that's in a marketplace or doing social media or Google ads, and then SEO. So if those are the six that are the industry standards, then what are the three that you're not going to resent doing? Because if you resent doing something, you're clearly going to just let it fall to the wayside. So what are the ones you won't resent doing? And what are the channels that your ideal clients are using the most? And so that's where you have to think about, what do I have the capacity and the desire to do?

[00:19:19.180] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

And then where does that intersect with where my clients are hanging out on the internet or in real life, perhaps?

[00:19:27.600] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Two or three. Yeah, we're on the same page. I've been calling it the holy trinity, which is about as religious as I get. The holy trinity of marketing, which is blogging, SEO, Instagram, and networking. If you can focus in those three places building relationships using SEO, which I count Pinterest as SEO since it's a visual search engine. And then Instagram, you're pretty well set. You can experiment in other places, but you don't have to be on TikTok unless your clients really are there. And maybe eventually they will be as we graduate through the millennial cycle and we get into Gen Z more. And who knows what the next generation after that look like? I'm so scared. But I agree with you. I think three is easy to manage. And interestingly enough, with this 47 % of small business owners doing it completely by themselves, how can you be expected to manage more than three marketing channels in your business consistently? That just would feel impossible.

[00:20:30.970] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Yeah. And you and I are people who spend more of our time every week on marketing than your typical wedding pro. Because I do have friends that erroneously compare themselves to me on the marketing front. I'm like, Please don't do that.

[00:20:50.630] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Because my.

[00:20:52.210] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Job is marketing, hence why it looks like I'm everywhere all the time in all the places. That is is not... That's because my job is marketing. My job is not to plan a wedding, do floral, run a business that has way more moving parts than me here in my home office where I have sweet sweet control over everything. Very true. That's the other thing to really think about is when people are looking at others and comparing themselves to them, how much time are they actually spending on marketing? If you're talking about me and Candice, it's a lot. If you're talking about your typical wedding pro, maybe it's 30 minutes a day, maybe. Probably closer to five. Again, expectations are great for just feeling a lot better and more confident about what.

[00:21:47.880] - Candice Coppola (Host)

You're doing. Agreed. I've been challenging the women in my Mastermind this week during our hot seat calls because marketing has been a really hot topic this week. I think everybody's feeling fatigued and a little broken. I've been challenging them to take the first 15 minutes of their work day and do a marketing focused task, whether that's posting on Instagram in some way, adding to a blog post draft they've been working on, just something and creating a better habit of just 15 minutes at the start of your work day to make progress on your marketing and make marketing a habit, not something that you feel like you need to do, you have to do, this task that you keep just ignoring in a sauna. It's like you just keep changing the due date on it.

[00:22:34.000] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Totally, right. I love the concept of marketing as a habit, and it's one that I've started really latching on to because the more I think about it, marketing is imperative to the overall health of your business. When you think about what you do on a daily basis to take care of your physical self, you brush your teeth every day because you know you need to. If you went even a day without brushing your teeth, you'd be like, I feel disgusting.

[00:23:05.330] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Disgusting. Disgusting. My proverbial question is, why would you go more than a day or two without doing something to market your business? Because you would never go weeks on end without brushing your teeth.

[00:23:21.770] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, it's true. And marketing should be a habit like brushing your teeth. This episode of the Power and Purpose podcast is sponsored by Engy. If you feel overwhelmed by your marketing and you wish you could create better and easier marketing strategies, Engy, it's going to be your marketing BFF. Engy is a new software helping wedding pros like you create an actionable and strategic marketing plan in just a few clicks. In fact, when you sign up for your 14 day free trial of Engy, you can answer 20 quick questions and Engy will create a marketing strategy for you. If you want to learn more about Engy and sign up for that free trial to get your free marketing plan, go to candice coppola. Com. That's it for Candice Coppola. Com enj. If you decide to subscribe, you'll also get 15 % off Engy for your first two months. Thanks to Engy for sponsoring this episode of the show. Now, let's get back to my interview with Taylor. I also have found recently that batch working and marketing really doesn't work for everyone. It's a great tool. I use it in my business, and I even have a podcast episode on batch working.

[00:24:43.350] - Candice Coppola (Host)

But I find that on the other side of the spectrum, it becomes almost so overwhelming because it requires to batch work. It requires preparation in order to step into that day of creating marketing content. And if you don't do the prepatory work to set yourself up to batch work, you're spending your whole day preparing and then time has gone by and you're not able to create the marketing assets you need to. So therefore, you don't do it. Or it just feels so insurmountable and overwhelming that you just don't do it, period. I love these little 15, 30 minute rituals and habits to begin your day with marketing if batch working just doesn't feel like it works for you. Do you use batch working in your business?

[00:25:28.200] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

I do. And I have to because people are going to hate me. I do marketing for more than one brand. So I officially, I think I've hit my capacity for how many businesses I'm allowed to start and run, and the answer is three. I wouldn't survive if I wasn't batching my time. I have days set aside for each business. Now, my full-time focus is Enging, but I do have two other businesses that I very much care about. I have one day a week that I split to spend a half day on tailored and a half day on sourced to make sure that they've got everything that they need. But then even within those blocked days, then I know I have a routine of one of those days a month is going to be for writing email newsletters. Another one is going to be for writing blogs. Another one is going to be for social media scheduling. I have this, I have layers of how I block out my time because that's what I need to do to keep my nose above water. But yeah, the habits and the routines that I love that you're coaching to, everyone just needs to think of those as nonnegotiables.

[00:26:48.480] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

And if you do that, then you are committing, you're showing up, you're doing all these things that we've been talking about throughout this conversation.

[00:26:59.090] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, I agree. Well, I love that we have batch working, we have routines and rituals. I love that you shared with us your marketing schedule. I want somebody to realize, though, it's taken you years to build that, to perfect it, and to figure out how that works for you. And I imagine that over the years, you've been adding tasks and channels and things to your marketing schedule and adapting to those additions, then adding more. So anybody listening shouldn't feel overwhelmed by what Taylor and I do. Again, we are probably way more marketing focused than you even need to be in your wedding business. But just realize that you can build your business up to have lots of marketing. You just need to start somewhere.

[00:27:42.330] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

That's one of the things that whenever I deliver a custom marketing strategy to clients, I give them, This is where you're going to start. Once you've mastered this and this feels easy to consistently take action on, then and only then are you allowed to think about adding to this plate. Yes. Then and only then.

[00:28:06.300] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah. We try to eat the whole elephant in one bite and you can't do that. You have to take it piece by piece. T hat's with everything in business. We hear podcast episodes, we read blogs, we hear speakers on stages talk amazing talks about their process, their systems, the things they've been able to do. But we're seeing it many years later from where we might be sitting in our business. It can feel difficult when we try to take action on what people tell us or what they might be doing. It feels hard to do because we're trying to do it all at once rather than just starting somewhere. This brings me to my question about creating a marketing strategy because that in and of itself can feel really overwhelming. And you mentioned NG. I'd love for you to tell us how NG can help us get our marketing plan together.

[00:29:00.770] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

So I was thinking about this, and for the people who are teenage boys at heart, like I am, I only have brothers. So this whole like girly thing is a new experience for me. But we are taking the if you can dodge a wrench, you could dodge a ball approach with creating a marketing strategy at NG. Because all you have to do is play a game of 20 questions with us, and NG takes the answers to the questions and customizes and spits out a marketing strategy for you. So you don't have to dodge new wrenches. No one's throwing hard metal tools at you. But all you have to do is answer these questions. They are not open ended, so I am not giving you the opportunity to overthink things. I'm literally asking you to make selections, and then you're going to get a marketing strategy. This is something that takes seriously five minutes, even if you are taking your time with it, as opposed to what I used to do with my marketing strategy clients, which was spend 40 hours creating a custom marketing strategy for them. Who has time to spend 40 hours creating a marketing strategy for themselves?

[00:30:22.350] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

No one. But having a marketing strategy is super foundational and fundamental to having a successful business. And so five minutes, 20 questions. Those are the only thing standing in between any small business owner and a marketing strategy at this point.

[00:30:38.660] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, it's actually fascinating. I created my marketing strategy using NG and I answered the 20 questions. They were very interesting and it was fun because I didn't know what questions to expect. I found them to be really insightful and the choices I was like, Well, gosh, what do I want to focus on? It got me thinking about things, which was really lovely. I went through the 20 questions and out came my marketing strategy that NG created for me based on my answers. It gave me goals, it gave me objectives. It told me what marketing platforms I should be focused on in order to execute this strategy. I was super impressed with how it was able to give me all this information. And you know what was great? It took the decision making away for me. I didn't have to swirl in this world pool of ideas and indecision and lack of confidence and imposter syndrome. Engy was like, Listen, bitch, this is what you need to do. You want to grow your email list? You better do this. You want to get clients on Instagram? You need to freaking post. Now, of course, it wasn't yelling at me like that.

[00:31:47.040] - Candice Coppola (Host)

And I wouldn't mind if it did, honestly. I wouldn't mind if it was like, What are you doing? Get up off your ass. Market your business. But it took away that indecision. And I just appreciate that so much.

[00:31:58.270] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Yeah. That's really for the people who know me as a person, I've explained to NG as I have turned myself into software. So all the things that I would have sat down and advised someone to do, I spent months in this room creating the universe that would actually, which I underestimated by leaps and bounds. I was like, Oh, I'll be cute. This will take me a week to figure out how I'm going to map all of someone's questions to these potential outputs. I was like, three months later, I'm like, Fuck, am I done yet? But no, that's really the big piece to what we're trying to do here is make marketing super approachable, give people no excuses to not be empowered to what they're going to do next. If you get the strategy and you're like, This is a great base, but I want to fucks with it more, you can. You can delete things, you can add things. I'm not trying to lock... I am not a God, so I'm not like this omnipotent being that's like, This is what you will do to market your business, and this is the perfect strategy for you.

[00:33:13.090] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

We're trying to give people a super solid base. Then if you're more marketing minded and you have an opinion or you're working with a consultant, they can come in here and you guys can work together to really fine tune it from there. But we're just trying to give people a base because when I've asked my social media following and just my network at large, 75 % of people don't have a marketing strategy. And that's a really terrifying number.

[00:33:40.440] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I.

[00:33:40.600] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Agree. I'm trying to change that.

[00:33:42.500] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, I agree. A marketing strategy just helps you to remain focused on what your goals are, what your objectives are, what you want to get out of marketing. What is the point of all this? How many customers do you want to book? What do you want them to buy from you? How do you want to build your brand? Who do you want to know about you? It's actually pretty simple things that Engy has been able to condense down in an easy to understand strategy. And you mentioned something really great that I think people underestimate, which is the spark that something like Engy can give you to then take an idea and run with it. So even if you're like, you know what? I like what Engy says, but I actually think I should be doing blank. It's because it's given you just something to consider that it's gotten you confident in making a decision that relates to your business and yourself. And in order to start a fire, we just need a spark. And the marketing strategy acts as that spark. However, I will say it also just can actually be the fire. You just can follow the strategy and see results.

[00:34:47.750] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

That was one of the things. When someone creates a marketing strategy, then one of the pieces of magic is you go over to the task calendar and all of a sudden they're like, all these marketing tasks that are there. They're ones that Engy is recommending to you. Some of them are one offs. If one of your goals and objectives is related to SEO and you don't have a blog, it's like, Hey, start a blog. But then there are these recurring tasks in there that are the habits, the routines, the rituals that we really want you to own. There are a lot of things in there that people just haven't considered before because for whatever reason, people are so laser focused on, I need to be on Instagram and TikTok. But there are so many other things that you can think about. That's the other piece of this. It's giving you direction, like this is the lane you're going to live in. But also don't get so stuck in your own ways. There are other things you might want to consider trying and take it or leave it, try them or don't. But it's about getting people to really wrap their arms around what's possible with marketing so that eventually everyone's feeling way more confident about being their own marketing director, which is like, Hi, we already are our own marketing directors, but we don't all own the role.

[00:36:21.480] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

So I want people to own the role.

[00:36:23.370] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah. I think it's such a great addition to my tech stack. I love using it and I love what it has to offer from a strategy standpoint, also from a practicality standpoint. I think one of the toughest things about marketing is you don't see your results right away. It can feel as if you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall, or it just feels like you're constantly showing up, but you may not be getting back that affirmation. And sometimes you don't even know what is results. What is the results I'm going for? How do I know if my marketing is performing? And NG gives you this opportunity to track your KPIs, your key performance indicators, which I think is great. So you can visually see those accomplishments. So what are some metrics that we can use in our marketing to see how it's performing? What should we be paying attention to to feel like, yeah, we're doing the damn thing?

[00:37:20.130] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

It's working. Yeah. I will concede that I am currently sitting in the very uncomfortable space because at the time we're recording this, NG is 11 days old. I'm sitting in that really awkward space of my initial marketing push got a lot of people into trial, but everyone's exploring now. Now I'm just not freaking out, but freaking out. They're like, Are people actually going to use it? I don't know. I'm having to wait. I want to share that because there is always that lag time between when you turn up your marketing machine and when you start to see results. The weird messy soup of emotions as you're trying to convince yourself to be patient with it, that's real. It's like I said, it's uncomfortable, and I am currently sitting in that spot. So score me, score me. But in terms of what KPIs people should be tracking, obviously, we all start a business because we want to make money. You can have your public facing, I want to help people plan the wedding of their dreams intention. But when it comes down to it, I don't know very many people who can just work for fun.

[00:38:38.560] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

So we all need to make money.

[00:38:39.580] - Candice Coppola (Host)

There are a few, though. Let's be honest. There are a couple out there who have the ways and means to make it look like they're balling in their biz, but really their Daddy is balling. But go ahead.

[00:38:50.170] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Yes. Life goals, not going to lie, life goals. I would like to work for fun. There are some vanity metrics that I still like to track because in my opinion, the vanity metrics are tied to your brand building efforts. How recognizable, how well received, how trusted your brand is does have an impact on the more quantitative aspects of marketing. It is one of those misunderstood and under leveraged parts of market, like brand marketing. It's okay to track your social media following your website visitors, your p intrest views, how many times your business has been featured. But just understand, you shouldn't be obsessed with those things, but they are a way for you to help temperature check how your brand is doing overall. But honestly, when we're talking about what are the metrics that are really worth your time, it's the ones that are going to show you, am I actually making progress toward my end goal, which is that whole money thing. The way you earn money as a wedding professional is you book clients. But what do you have to see before they've actually booked to understand that you're on the right track to booking the number of clients that you want.

[00:40:20.300] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

This is not going to be anything like breaking news. Taylor fucking told everyone you should be tracking the number of leads you get every month. But tracking the number of leads you get or consultations you're scheduling, how many proposals are going out, how many contracts are being signed, those are all helpful to track because then you can calculate your conversion rates in between each of those phases. Then that helps you understand, Okay, how many leads a month should I be getting in order to book the number of clients that I want? Or if you're not playing a numbers game, if it's a... If the value of the services that have been booked is really more your focus, then you should really be tracking, How much in services did I book this month, next month, three months ago. These are all ways that you can help set expectations, but also really see the fruits of your labor. Then you can understand when you... Maybe you've taken your foot off of the marketing gas pedal a little too much, and then you need to put a cinder block back down to make it work.

[00:41:31.450] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Full speed ahead. Kpis are important. Identifying the sales KPIs and understanding how that's working in your business will give you so much data that will help you make decisions. Data helps you make decisions. I have a saying, we want to make decisions on facts and not feelings. We want to make decisions on facts and not fears. What's nice about NG is in the KPIs portion of the platform, you're able to track a wide variety of metrics. And I can imagine that maybe that will even expand should people have other metrics they want to track. But everything from your vanity metrics to your sales KPIs, I was really impressed. I also loved how easy it was to just put in the information and how visual it was because I could choose however I wanted to see it visually, like whatever graph or pie chart or line chart or whatever I wanted, I could pick and then visually see my accomplishments or visually see what's going on in my business, compare and contrast. Think about too, just creating a report for yourself every month, measuring your marketing, measuring your sales, and being able to visually see what's going on in your business so that you can use that to make decisions.

[00:42:48.960] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I mean, it's so good.

[00:42:50.630] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

We're trying to make the numbers not scary anymore. It's like you put in the numbers and you get out these pretty graphs. It makes it less intimidating and also a hell of a lot easier to understand where things are trending, whether they're going up or down or sideways.

[00:43:06.090] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I would love for you to share, as we wrap up our time together today, one thing that we can do to practice our marketing daily. We talked about rituals, habits, routines here today, and you had recently done an Instagram post, I think, about making marketing a daily practice. So do you have one tip, or maybe more than one, but one tip for us so we can begin to practice marketing daily?

[00:43:34.360] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Yeah. If I didn't sit down and plan out my months ahead of time, I would not succeed. And so that is the biggest thing that any wedding pro or wedding business owner can do for themselves. It's the biggest favor is sit down and spend... Honestly, we're talking 30 minutes, maybe 60 minutes. I mean, I have my... Here, let me reach off camera for a second. I'm a paper person. I love paper. I transfer everything into NG, my digital forms, but I start with paper because that's how my brain works. Here's my planning that I did of high level, what am I sharing on social media over the month, what are the overarching themes for each of the month or weeks within the month. But I've given myself a blueprint to then execute on. And so the decision making is done. I just go into doer mode versus needing to be in CMO mode all of the time. So that is the one thing that everyone can do to just make it easier on yourself is create a monthly plan. Maybe you only have the capacity to do it in two week chunks, but just plan something ahead and you will be able to start committing to the daily stuff from there.

[00:45:01.030] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I love the two starting with two weeks. Maybe that feels doable and then you can evaluate and figure out what you want to do and maybe then go to a month in advance. But Engy is there to also help you create marketing campaigns and get your strategy together and then execute that strategy, which sometimes is the hardest part is it's the execution. We're not short on ideas. We have a shit ton of ideas, too many ideas sometimes. I feel like this is my husband and his friends. They sit around and they have all these fucking ideas to do all this stuff. And then who's going to do it all? Who's going to throw the party? Who's going to create the thing that you guys want to create? Who's going to do the labor? It's not me. I learned that lesson. I try to participate in your creative endeavors and I'm not doing that anymore. So we're not short on creative ideas, but it's the execution that can be really difficult. And Taylor is giving you a simple way to execute your marketing, which is to take the strategy and then map it out for the month and make commitments and decisions about what you're going to post.

[00:46:01.170] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Now, she had held up her marketing strategy that began on paper, and it was literally just a hand drawn calendar with her ideas in each day. I mean, it was literally that simple. And I think everybody listening can commit to doing something like that.

[00:46:17.950] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Yeah. I still love the marketing strategies that I would put together for clients, but oh, boy, those were like 25 page PDFs. They were hefty things. And so that was one of the things that I learned over time that even though there was so much in there, there was almost too much in there. And it just fed into this whole notion of doing marketing, it was a heavy lift all the time. It's one of those life lessons that I'm building off of and really trying to make things as easy as humanly possible. Please, please, please, everyone, go out there and market your business. Make it a habit, make it a ritual that you're committed to. And unless you are not listening to your metrics, you can't fuck it up. Doing something every day is so much better than not doing anything.

[00:47:15.660] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yes, thank you for saying that. I have been having this conversation as well this week with the women in my Mastermind about releasing yourself from the pressure of having to have everything you post on the internet be absolutely perfect or profound, or going to tilt the Earth on its axis. Those viral posts or those profound things that we post that seem to people that resonate with people, those come to you organically and naturally. They just happen. You leave space for that. When it happens, it's great. But most of marketing is the silly in between. It's the raising your hand and saying, Hey, guys, I'm still fucking here. By the skin of my teeth, I am still in business. Hire me. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. It literally is that stuff and that consistency that I think matters.

[00:48:03.270] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Just keep raising your hand. Show the fuck up.

[00:48:09.710] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Well, on that note, I think that NG can help our listeners to show up more in their business. I'm calling it your marketing BFF. It's going to be like your chief marketing officer getting you up off your ass to market your business. And you are giving our listeners an opportunity to get a 14 day free trial so they can go and test NG out. But what's the first thing they should do when they sign up for their trial?

[00:48:36.900] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Create your marketing strategy. I will die on this hill. Create your marketing strategy first because there's a lot of magic that is tied to that. So start there and then after you've done that, the next thing you want to do is hop into the task calendar. You're going to see a lot of tasks front loaded in that first 30 days, but they're there because I don't I can't actually see your calendar. So I put most of the ideas there, move them around so it feels good for how you can actually handle ticking through them. Delete the ones that don't make sense for you. And then jump into your brand asset library and start doing the fun stuff. Start uploading your logos, building out your color palettes. Take a little bit of a creative break from thinking about marketing strategy and just play in your brand because that's also important. And also you can brand your account to your brand colors because I have legitimately unsubscribed from software because I thought it was too ugly to use. Same. Yeah. So you can make your account yours. So it's pretty to look at. It's easy to use all the time and it's always there to support you.

[00:49:46.000] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Oh, I love it. And listen, when you guys log in for your free trial, your 14 day free trial, and tailor wants you to do your marketing strategy, this is the quiz that you're going to take, the 20 question quiz that you just put in the answers of what you're feeling right now, what you want to do, where you want to go, where you want to focus, what your objectives are, what your goals are, who you're trying to attract. And then NG gives you your marketing strategy. It's like, here you go. And then it gives you your to do list. It gives you all these things that you can then build upon. So you get this with your free 14 day trials. So you literally get a marketing strategy for nothing. It's amazing for nothing. And you're going to love it so much. And you're going to love it so much that you're going to want to stick around. And when you do, you'll get 15 % off your first two months or a special deal if you decide to pay in full for the year. So we're going to direct you over to Candice Coppola.

[00:50:38.690] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Com NG. We have all the details there for you. Please go and sign up for your free trial. It's so easy to use. It's visually beautiful. One of the things that I was so impressed with was how quickly everything loaded and worked. And I'm like, this thing is just cruising. And I just love how simple it is, but it's also pretty. It's just a great piece of software. And I'm so happy so excited for you, tailor. Congratulations.

[00:51:02.490] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for just being you and always having such fun marketing conversations and letting me come on and drop a few F bombs along the way. I always appreciate that.

[00:51:14.350] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Well, I appreciate a guest who's not afraid to say fuck. So on that note, tailor, thank you so much for being a guest.

[00:51:21.400] - Tayler Cusick Hollman (Guest)

Thank you so much for having me, Candice.

[00:51:23.320] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I want to thank tailor so much for being such a great guest on today's episode of The Power and Purpose Podcast. Gosh, that was a really great pep talk. I hope that you are feeling inspired and excited to get back to marketing your business if you've fallen off the wagon. And if you haven't fallen off the wagon, congratulations to you, my friend. You're doing it right and we couldn't be more proud of you. I want to encourage you to go ahead and sign up for a free trial of NG. You get 14 days free and if you decide to subscribe, you'll get 15 % off your first two months. You can learn more about NG and get this special deal for our podcast listeners by going to Candice Coppola. Com ng. That's Candice Coppola. Com engi. All right, friend, I would love to hear from you. So let me know what you thought of today's episode over on my Instagram, and I will see you in the next episode. I'm here to remind you, as always, there's so much power in your purpose. Until next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power in Purpose podcast.

[00:52:37.450] - Candice Coppola (Host)

If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerinpurpose podcast. Com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerandpurpose podcast. Com. I'll see you next time.