It's Marketing's Fault

Strategy is always the key to success.

Make sure you document your strategy and make sure you build a solid foundation for your business before you skip to the growth hacks and the catchy funky click bait.

Make sure you know what your goals are.

Think long term.

Don't think next week, don't think how you're going to get a thousand subscribers by next month.

Think about how you want to, how you want your business to look like in the next three to five years.

Then work your way back and figure out the steps you need to take to get there.

Again, in the very beginning it's going to be the things that don't scale.

There's going to be a lot of manual work that you can't automate or delegate to your friendly AI bot, but in the end This is what builds a solid foundation.

And when you have that nailed, when you know who you're talking to and especially why you're talking to them, then you can start figuring out shortcuts and how to get to your goalpost faster.

But the foundation and documenting your strategy, your vision, your long-term goals is something you should not outsource.

You can always work with a consultant.

but you need to be very clear on these things on your own.

Welcome to It's Marketing's Fault.

The podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way.

Hey, I'm your host Eric Rutherford and I am thrilled today because I have with me Adriana Tica.

She is a long time digital marketer and three times solopreneur.

She is all about no BS zero hacks marketing strategy.

She's a founder of two different agency brands, I done and copyright tech, which offer content and copywriting solutions.

And she is also the author of the phenomenal Ideas to Power Your Future Weekly Newsletter, which I cannot recommend enough to everybody listening.

Adriana, welcome to the show.

Hi, Eric.

Thank you.

Thank you for your invitation and for the amazing intro.

Oh, it is my pleasure.

I have gotten to connect with you on LinkedIn.

I have really enjoyed your writing, really learn a ton from your newsletter.

And I thought it would be a great opportunity just to selfishly to have a conversation with you and learn from you.

But at the same time, then be able to share that with the audience at large.

So I appreciate you joining me today.

Thank you.

I appreciate it too precisely because I've been learning a lot from your newsletter as well.

I don't have a podcast of my own, but I really loved having your advice as a pro at podcasts for being a better guest.

So I hope you won't quiz me on this, but I hope that it shows that I've been reading your newsletter.

Well, thank you.

I, that, that humbles me.

I'm, that's very kind.

So I'm, I'm excited.

Well, we'll jump in.

Among the many things I've read about, you've spoken on is email marketing.

So what is a popular way of using email lists that you completely disagree with?

Like, so almost, what's considered true by many email marketers which you think is false.

I think we can say overselling is definitely the biggest pet peeve in email marketing right now.

I know the common lore says when someone subscribes, hit them with your best offer.

Then send them three more offers within your email sequence.

Give them your best pitches.

And I know where this is coming from.

You know that the people who subscribe to your newsletter, they're in action mode.

But the action they wanted to take was to subscribe to your newsletter.

Maybe they're not yet ready to be to be so sold to, you know.

And most email marketing.

Experts I see today, they advise you to email people as frequently as possible Repeat your offers as often as you can and I fell for that advice too Actually in the beginning when I first launched my newsletter and I realized that it's actually working against me, you know This is not the era of building an email list just to endlessly spam the people on it I mean it works if you sell mail enhancement drugs and if your biggest concern right now is how to spell Viagra in a completely different way so that spam filters don't catch on.

But other than that, people need a bit more to buy, especially if what you sell is a high-ticket offer and especially if you're catering to a very tech savvy, sophisticated and smart audience, you know.

I'm not saying let them figure out their way to your...

online shop, but maybe don't push for those sales five days a week and don't add them to endless sequences that say, hey, why didn't you buy?

I noticed you click, but still you didn't buy.

Was it something I did?

Can I do this better for you?

Here's an 80% discount.

Just make the damn purchase.

You know, it's annoying.

It's really annoying and it stopped working as a...

our inboxes got more crowded, we get tens of these pitches every single day and they've become like background noise, you know.

80% off, fine, I'm sure this email will pop up next week again.

I don't need to take action despite what you tell me in your subject line.

I agree.

I at some point it's just way too many emails for a purchase.

What about if they are just providing information without a sales pitch?

Would you say still kind of the same thing or is that a different case?

I think it's a different case and if you write emails that provide information, even if that information is about your own products, if you write to tell them how you build them or where you got the idea from, that's a bit different because it makes your list feel a bit like a community again, you know, which is what you should be aiming for, even though perhaps community is too strong a word since the members don't have access to each other and they never communicate to each other.

But, I mean, at the same time, you don't have to have a newsletter, for instance.

You know, everyone has a newsletter these days, myself included, but that's not mandatory to have a successful email list.

All you have to do is give them non-salesy information at least every once in a while.

Because I'm subscribed to a ton of emails and the usual flow is I want to download a freebie or maybe I want to buy a product, then I'm added to the email list.

I don't hear from them.

for months and then they're back with an offer that I cannot afford to miss.

I forgot who they are, you know?

I literally forgot who they are.

You won't believe our prices, maybe, but for now I don't believe the audacity.

Who are you?

You know?

That's so true.

It's building that relationship.

It's that ongoing information communication.

I appreciate you sort of discussing the differences there.

And that leads kind of to my next question.

You were recently on Masters of VMO Marketing webinar.

And just for everybody listening, in case you missed that, it was fabulous.

Her slide deck was just pure gold.

And you talked about growing an email list as well as monetizing an email list.

So let's say somebody is building their email list and, you know, we now know we don't want to spam them with offers.

We want to build that content and that relationship with them.

So how can somebody monetize an email list?

Because it really is a valuable asset.

This relationship, this community.

what's sort of the first thing someone can do in order to begin monetizing?

I'm gonna have to start with marketing's most hated answer.

It depends.

It depends on what you're building, what your goals are, and most of all, what your skillset is.

But in general, the fastest way to monetize an email list is through services, because you don't need to spend a ton of time building digital products or I don't know, physical products.

You...

You don't have to create complex flows.

All you need is a landing page.

Sometimes not even that.

You can simply say, hey, I offer consulting services, I offer copywriting services, web design, whatever your skill is.

Reply to this email to learn more, to get the price list or, you know, simply get in touch.

It's the world's simplest CTA.

So services are the fastest way to monetize your email list.

I also think they are the best way to start because by working one-on-one with your clients at first You're going to get a lot of great ideas for digital products that you can sell So you can monetize your expertise at scale So this is where I would start because if you plan on selling something, I know courses are very popular masterminds are popular But if you have the know-how to build a course course or a mastermind or a cohort based program, then you definitely have the skills to offer that expertise as a service first.

And that makes sense.

And getting that feedback from the customers on what their problems are, what they want, just having that dialogue with them would then help with courses or anything else.

But that makes sense just in terms of service-based conversations.

And then you know what they want as opposed to creating something that they might not want.

Yeah, exactly.

And your reputation takes a hit when you do that and you start getting discouraged in your idea.

But you know, if you're just starting out, it makes sense to gather this information firsthand to do the things that don't scale first as Paul Graham puts it, you know.

Take the time to have these conversations and go a bit beyond the scope of your service, you know.

Try to understand what problem you can solve through a service and maybe if there's a way to productize it later.

If you can't...

Not everything can be productized, for instance.

Some things are better left as services, despite what, you know, common lore tells you.

That's true and it seems like the more questions you receive about a certain area, a certain topic, a certain problem, the better it will be to narrow down what you might be able to create into some type of product.

Yeah, because like not all problems need a product.

Exactly.

Mostly because most people, they don't want information, they want assistance, you know.

That's a good point too in that it's really a different mindset, sort of different skill set there because some people want to do it on their own but some businesses are just they just want you to fix it for them.

Exactly.

Let me know when it's done.

I'm happy to pay you to do this.

Just make it go Exactly.

Oh, no.

And I appreciate that distinction because sometimes we get, we get so caught up in, and I say this as someone who is guilty of it, get so caught up in, how can I help people to learn how to do this particular task that, that I forget that, hey, some people just want it done, right?

They just want to, here's my money.

Please make the problem go away.

Exactly, especially if it's about a non-repetitive problem or a very specific skill set.

You know, I talk a lot about marketing because I strongly believe that to succeed in any kind of business, especially a solo business, you need a marketing mindset first and foremost.

You need to acquire this information.

You can delegate design and copywriting and bug issues to your website, for instance.

This you can outsource them.

But if you don't have the marketing mindset yourself, learn how to think strategically about every tiny aspect of your business, then you're in a bit of trouble, you know?

This is why most of the things I sell are related to building a marketing mindset and a strategic mindset into my clients.

Not all of them are marketers.

A lot of the solopreneurs and creators I work with, they come with different backgrounds. They’re experts in their field and they're struggling to make sense out of marketing and what could work and how to make their offers shine or how to build their products in the first place and This is the kind of knowledge they need but perhaps they don't need to build their website on their own, you know No, and I agree with that.

I work with product managers and product owners.

I work with different groups and if or when they get that marketing mindset, I see sort of this light bulb and this understanding where they're no longer trying to simply sell features and products and price.

And if when product owners understand that to me, that is a big win.

So I completely applaud and support trying to teach and help people understand that marketing mindset.

Yeah, I think it's the most rewarding part of what I do, especially in one-on-one consults, because they're on camera, you can literally see the light bulb start to blink in their hands, say this is...

it was that easy?

This is how I have to reverse engineer it?

Start from the outcome, not the web?

Yes, exactly! And then it all falls into place, you know?

It's just like you throw the pieces of a puzzle on the floor.

and they magically arrange themselves in the right order.

Yeah.

I love that image because it is.

It's like suddenly the pieces all come together.

You have, you know, the puzzle.

You understand everything and how it fits.

And that's so important.

I'm going to jump to another question.

So for everybody listening, I always send a list of questions to my guests.

And as I'm looking through the questions I sent to Adriana, I think nearly all of them relate to different editions of her newsletter over the last few months, because it was just chock full of so many things.

So I'm just, on this one, I'm going back to your newsletter from 26th of October, where you're talking about, tell me what type of business you're really running.

Uh, you went through three different types of businesses and the one area that seemed to have overlap was this idea of credibility.

So, and I think this, this is true with marketing.

This is true with business.

You know, it's, uh, marketing is in many ways how you, you demonstrate this.

So how do you create credibility and maintain it?

you have several hours to discuss this?

No, I'm kidding.

Especially when it comes to solo businesses, your credibility is the only currency you have, if you think about it.

If people stop trusting you, they'll stop buying, they'll stop listening, they'll simply cancel you eventually.

And you can look at credibility...

even at higher levels.

You can see what happened to Elon Musk.

You know, he was a respected businessman a few years ago, but ever since Tesla got into a few bits of trouble, then it's Twitter or X or whatever he calls it these days, and people are starting to question his sanity.

You know, it's not just a matter of is he a savvy businessman.

Of course, there are voices who say that you know, he's got something in mind, you're gonna see.

everything's gonna pan out very well for him eventually.

And perhaps that's true, but in the meantime, Twitter is bleeding users, even his other businesses suffer because he's the image of everything that he runs.

And this is even truer when you're a small creator, a solopreneur, or when you run an agency like I do.

There's very little else to back up your claims if you...

you screw the pooch ones and people may accept that you know we all make mistakes I nearly killed my first business I made a ton of mistakes but the one thing that people rarely forgive is when you over promise and under deliver and it's so easy to do that you know it's so easy to get high on your own supply you build something and you're so convinced it's great and you're convinced it's not great just for you and for your financial gains, but you're convinced it's going to help thousands of people, millions of people if you're really ambitious and you really believe in it.

But before you go public with your strong belief, make sure to ask a few people.

Ask a few people to use your products to give you their honest feedback on it.

Make sure your products are really worth what you're charging for.

And you know, I'm talking about products.

But at the same time, we can say the same about everything you say or write.

You know, if you're a fan of clickbait, you know, you better deliver, you know.

If you promise someone a sensational story, make sure it's sensational, you know, before you hit publish on your, I don't know, article, blog post, email or so on.

And I appreciate that sort of high level distinction on credibility.

Because like you say, you could talk for hours on building and maintaining credibility.

But I think you're right.

It is truly the foundation for any business.

I'm going to skip down and ask a different question since you brought up clickbait.

Because I wanted to ask about that too.

That was in your latest newsletter, the one from last week.

You talked about sensationalism and clickbait, and I think we're all familiar with it.

What's the antidote to sensationalism and clickbait?

And what keeps us from using it?

Because it would seem like, oh, we don't like clickbait, and yet we're prone to creating it.

Yes.

I say that as a marketer, right?

I say that full, full confession, full disclosure.

I'm a marketer, I'm a writer, and I fall prey.

So I would love to hear your thoughts.

I'm in the exact same position, Eric.

I mean, it's so easy to write a click-baity subject line or a blog post headline.

It's super easy.

You know what's harder?

It's harder to consistently create great content.

So you think you can fix things with a click-baity headline.

And in a way it does fix this thing, it does fix things, you know, because people are going to click on it, they're drawn to it, it's wired into our brains, we really can't fight it.

So we're going to click on it, but then we're going to be disappointed.

And if this happens again and again and again, there goes your credibility as well.

So a good question to ask, a good litmus test is, is my story...

exactly as sensational as I make it out to be in the title.

And next, if the answer to the first question is no, is my credibility worth that click or those dozens of clicks?

Because we keep using, and I'm not immune to that to that siren song either, you know, I'll fully admit it, we keep using clickbait and hyperbole and we over promise because, well, we're wired to do it.

So it's easier to turn out dozens of.

clickbait, subject lines and article titles.

You can do that with AI now, it's just gotten easier.

But it's hard to consistently write exceptional content.

No one can do that.

No one can churn out mind-blowingly good content every day or even every week.

So we resort to tricks and we want to keep people engaged, we want to get them clicking.

The only problem is that clicks don't pay the bills.

So again, we're back to delivering on what you promised.

If you want to hold on to that credibility.

You know, marketing is built on hyperbole.

And however much we hate clickbait and sensationalism, we're going to amplify the features of our product.

We're going to amplify the outcomes you may get.

by working with us.

But in the end, the goal here is to be as close to the mark as possible.

Don't promise you're going to 10X someone's business after you chat with them for one hour.

That's not happening.

Unless you have three case studies that prove you can do that, don't promise that.

Back up your claims.

You have a sensational claim to make.

These things happen.

Some people are exceptionally good at what they do.

but back it up with proof.

And ideally not proof that comes from your own beliefs, not proof that comes from yourself, from your mother, from your friends, you know, make it as impartial as possible.

That's a very good point.

It's backing up the claims, showing the credibility, or don't make extravagant claims to draw people in.

Exactly.

And I appreciate you breaking that.

It really kind of going into that.

And I like how you described that antidote because I think that works well.

It's just create consistently good content and provide that credibility long-term.

Like you say though, that's the hard part is that consistency, doing it over time.

We're always looking for the quick fix.

Yeah.

Yeah, and listen, if you know, because again, no one can consistently create something exceptional day after day, week after week.

If you feel like it's too much for you, if the pressure of publishing every day because some guru told you, you need to publish as often as possible, if that pressure gets to be too much, instead of resorting to clickbait and growth hacks, maybe reduce the frequency of your publishing.

Reduce your publishing schedule, you know?

Cut down three posts from your LinkedIn calendar.

Don't publish your newsletter every day.

Do it every week, do it every month, if that's what it takes to create consistently good content.

And that's a really good point.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes you as marketers, as content creators, it's easy to get overwhelmed or, ooh, if I just do this other thing, it'll go even better.

And then you're suddenly overwhelmed with all of the different platforms and projects that you're trying to create.

I appreciate you bringing up just scale back.

the work to help with the quality aspect.

Yeah, because you don't have to be everywhere.

I know that it's a bit dissonant, you know, we know we have to be top of mind, we have to be everywhere if possible, five, six, ten platforms, but that's not sustainable, especially with a very small team.

So do whatever you have to do to maintain a healthy balance between quality and quantity.

knowing that people will remember quality more than they remember quantity.

If you publish crap every day, they're just gonna hate you, they're gonna ignore you, they're gonna put you on snooze.

I don't need to listen to this again, because I think consistency is very misunderstood, you know?

It's not just about showing up every day, it's about stopping every once in a while to reevaluate what you are doing day after day and to see how you can improve things.

And this is in fact the hardest part about consistency.

Being able to kill your darlings as often as possible, being able to admit that, you know, I screwed the pooch again.

This was a bad tactic.

I need to go back to the drawing board.

This isn't working.

This is the hardest part about consistency, not showing up every day.

A monkey can do that.

Monkeys do that, you know, and they don't need a lot of training for that either.

It's it's the right kind of consistency It's trying to be consistent in a in a good High quality way not perfect but yet seeking to do that in a very positive way and I I've been wrestling with this last couple of months even just with Well, I changed my newsletter earlier this year because it was like, this isn't working, and I'm consistent, but I don't like writing this thing.

And so I paused for a month and then came back out with a new version.

And I like this one much better, and I'm getting better feedback.

I've done that with the podcast.

I put like 37 episodes together.

And then paused it in September.

It was like, OK, I'm consistent, but it's not really hitting the mark with what I want.

So it was like, pause, reset.

Now we're going with a different angle.

So I appreciate that distinction because I think we get so caught up in consistency that we forget the reason why the consistency matters.

Yeah, absolutely.

So let's kind of, we'll go back up the list of questions here.

Let's talk about audience.

So whether it's with a newsletter, whether it's with an email list, whether it's with any content, I mean, just a business in general, you need an audience.

So how can somebody find or identify?

their relevant audience and then how do you build that audience?

I guess that's kind of two questions.

One is identification, the other is actually building.

How do how does somebody go about doing that?

As you do with every marketing tactic, you start with a pain point.

I mean, if you can imagine this as a Venn diagram, you have a group of people who have one to three pain points, and then there's your skill set.

Somewhere in the middle, there's an intersection between these two groups.

This is your sweet spot, the people you can help.

how you identify them.

There's a bunch of tools out there.

I use SparkToro for instance, to figure out where my audience likes to hang out online, what podcast they listen to, what social media platform they're on.

And from then on, it's just a matter of being patient, very patient, if you want to build a relevant audience.

If what you're aiming for is bulk and growing a huge audience as fast as possible, then things, ironically enough, they get easier because you can just churn out inspirational content, Steve Jobs quotes, and people are going to flock there, they're going to shower you with likes, hearts, emojis, and thank you for today's dose of inspiration.

But my approach is usually...

Focus on a bit of quantity in the beginning because you want to get those You want to get those wheels in motion you want to have a few people who stop by your profile Whatever social media platform you're on And then focus on narrowing it down to your ideal customer profile Again, it's something that doesn't scale in the beginning.

You need to have conversations you need to have conversations with people who are a poor fit then conversations with people who are the right fit, you need to know the difference.

You need to understand that it's going to take more out of you to serve the wrong fit customer than it will to serve someone who's just right.

But it does take a bit of fine tuning to figure out who your services or your products are right for.

This is why I say it's something that doesn't scale in the beginning.

You need to have a ton of conversations and they're usually going to be one on one.

So to all this to say that if you want to build a relevant audience, it's going to take time.

And don't fall for everything you see on social media, how I scaled my account to 100k followers in three weeks.

Yes, it's possible, but yes, it's going to be useless Uh, it takes time to attract the right audience because the right audience usually knows something about um About your industry about the services you sell or the products you build so they have expectations that they're not going to fall uh They're not going to fall for you easily.

They've most likely been tricked before Uh, they bought a ton of uh of shit that turned out to be just that shit and so now they're doing their due diligence.

This is why it takes time and this is why you need patience.

If I remember correctly, building a solo business that's profitable and can sustain, you know, your livelihood takes around 18 months and it all begins with building an audience.

And I appreciate that distinction because as you said earlier, followers and clicks do not equal revenue and sales.

And so, yeah, making sure it's the right group of people is key.

Otherwise, it's just a vanity metric that doesn't help anybody.

Well, it helps a bit, you know, because having a huge follower count is social proof in itself.

People are more likely to listen to you if you have a million followers than if you have 10,000 followers.

Not because they necessarily trust you.

I mean, they do trust you, but it's a bit of an indirect relationship.

First and foremost, they trust that one million people already trust you.

If it's their peers, you know...

It's trust by proxy, if you will.

So this is why size isn't irrelevant either.

I think there are two schools of thought here, some that tell you build an audience really fast and no matter what it takes, and others that tell you, you know, you can get to seven figures even if you have 2,000 followers.

They're both right, but nothing is so cut and dry, you know.

there's balance between them.

If you can get to seven figures on an audience of 2,000 people imagine how high you could go if you had 20k followers.

If your niche is wide enough of course to allow for that number.

So there's nuance to everything.

No, and I appreciate that distinction and that kind of leads into kind of the next question just on social proof.

Is social proof something that businesses should seek out and how important is social proof to their marketing?

Oh, this is the hill I'm willing to die for.

I think social proof is one of the biggest growth levers you can pull.

In every shape or form, even if it's follower count, testimonials, reviews, case studies, every product or service you sell has a type of social proof that works better.

For instance, if you sell services, case studies are your best friend.

if you can get your clients on video or even to fill in a lengthy form where they detail your experience working with you and how you helped them get to the outcome that they wanted during the home run.

For products or courses, testimonials and reviews work much better.

I've never seen one instance where adding social proof to a landing page or to an email didn't increase the conversion rate.

And I'm talking about my own business as well as all the clients in my copywriting agency.

The minute we updated a landing page with social proof, the conversion rate increased, sometimes even by 40 or 70%.

So it's huge what it can do.

No one wants to be the first person to buy something.

What if it's a scam?

You know, show me social proof.

I appreciate that and that's something I've wondered about, been wrestling with.

What makes, what elements sort of does, I'll call it excellent social proof contain?

So when we talk about social proof, what should that look like for a given business, for a given entrepreneur?

How can they show that?

The best thing to include in your social proof are numbers.

If you can get numbers out of your clients, think about something like, by working with Eric, I was able to increase my retention rate by 40%.

By working with Eric, I managed to close down 60% more leads per month.

This is what you need to see.

If they can add revenue or profit to that, very few people want to add that, which is what makes it so valuable.

it's even better.

So if you can attach numbers to social proof, then it will work even better.

I've noticed this in my own business.

I sell a pre-written email sequence.

The testimonials that specifically said, you know, my open rate went sky high and they gave numbers, I think one of them said it went to 67% or something like that, those testimonials fared much better than all the others, because a 67% open rate is life goals.

Everyone wants it.

If you can get it with a pre-written email sequence, why not?

I'm going to give it a shot.

So the more...

I think we're going to go back to clickbait and sensationalism here, but the more sensational a piece of social proof is, the better it will work.

Again...

I have to add this warning.

Don't start making up the testimonials and the reviews.

People are going to catch on.

If there's no fantastic result to speak of, you're going to have to make do with a lukewarm review or a testimonial.

that's a good point to you want to be you want to be truthful you want to be very honest with the result and with the with the social proof otherwise yeah absolutely because your credibility just gets destroyed if you don't Yeah, I'm amazed that people still buy reviews on Google business or Amazon.

It's still a lucrative business for some reason.

Well, I understand the reasons.

I don't understand why we're not cracking down on this faster.

agree.

I know.

Oh, I totally agree.

And so if someone is trying to really establish their social proof, you know, what would you recommend they do first?

Now, this could be, you know, somebody with a new business, it could just be an existing business that has just never, you know, tried to leverage social proof.

What would you, what sort of that first step they can do to begin this journey?

You have two options here and depending on your situation, either of them could work or they can work together.

If your business is brand new and you have no reputation to speak of in your space, your safest bet is to offer your products or your services for free to a few select people that match your ideal customer profile to a T and tell them from the very beginning that you're doing this in exchange for their honest review, testimonial or case study.

This way you'll have a couple of pieces of social proof that you can use to attract new clients that fit the same profile, obviously.

And the second thing you can do, no matter how old your business is, is to incentivize people to deliver review or a testimonial.

Again, don't go overboard with this, because you want people to be honest, and if they're not honest...

it's going to show in their testimonial.

But one thing I do is when someone leaves me a testimonial for one of my products or my services, I make sure to add a link to their website.

If I publish it on social media, I tag them, I talk about their business a little bit.

And this is me sharing the spotlight.

You know, you left a review for my work.

and I'm going to help you get a bit of visibility from it too.

It's the easiest way to make people excited about leaving your review without making it all about yourself, you know?

You sort of give them something back, again, which is also how you build and foster long-term relationships.

It is, it's that reciprocity.

You know, you've given me a review.

I'm going to help promote you and your business, even in a, I say a small way, but sometimes those mentions and those shares and those comments, I mean, that can, you never know who's going to see those and what that's going to lead to for all parties involved.

So they can be really significant.

Absolutely, and I've seen this happen.

People met over a tiny LinkedIn tag and then they started building a business together it's serendipity works in mysterious ways.

Yes it does and so just you know it's just being willing to be willing to do that on both sides is you know whether you're the recipient whether you're you know you're the business just being willing to do that it goes so a long way so I appreciate both of those ideas on social proof and how to get started with social proof Just as we kind of wrap up here, one takeaway that you would like to leave the audience with.

I'll open the floor.

Any last takeaway you'd like to leave with them for marketing or email or any of the things we've talked about before we wrap up.

Yes, I'm going to go back to the intro you built for me and I'm going to remind people that strategy is always the key to success.

people that strategy is always the key to success.

Make sure you document your strategy and make sure you build a solid foundation for your business before you skip to the growth hacks and the catchy funky click bait.

Make sure you know what your goals are.

Think long term.

Don't think next week, don't think how you're going to get a thousand subscribers by next month.

Think about how you want to, how you want your business to look like in the next three to five years.

Then work your way back and figure out the steps you need to take to get there.

Again, in the very beginning it's going to be the things that don't scale.

There's going to be a lot of manual work that you can't automate or delegate to your friendly AI bot, but in the end This is what builds a solid foundation.

And when you have that nailed, when you know who you're talking to and especially why you're talking to them, then you can start figuring out shortcuts and how to get to your goalpost faster.

But the foundation and documenting your strategy, your vision, your long-term goals is something you should not outsource.

You can always work with a consultant.

but you need to be very clear on these things on your own.

And for everybody listening, that is key.

There's no shortcuts.

There's no easy ways to do this.

It's just, as you say, it's doing the non-scalable work and laying that foundation.

So I appreciate that.

I need to hear that as much as I know the audience needs to hear that.

So as we wrap up, what's that?

I know.

I want the shortcut.

It's so appealing.

of course, but sometimes you just have to dive into rush hour traffic.

There is no shortcut.

No matter how much you honk and scream at the traffic, it's not going to remove itself from your way, you know?

It's gonna be there.

That is so, so true.

Oh, my word.

Um, so if people want to know more about you, more about your newsletter, more about the products and services you offer, where would you like them to go?

To my newsletter first, I send a weekly newsletter about building a sustainable strategy for a business that's going to outlast recessions and trends and fads.

You can find it on adrianatica.com/newsletter and you can also find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

So I will put those links in the show notes.

If you're listening, go sign up for her newsletter.

Like, as soon as you finish listening to this, let me encourage you go sign up for a newsletter.

I learn so much from her every week.

And it's so valuable as well as her content on LinkedIn.

Adriana, thank you for joining me today.

This was this was such a fun conversation.

I learned I just learned a ton from you today.

Thank you, Eric, and you've just given me quite a few ideas for next newsletter issues.

I had a ton of fun too.