Behind the scenes on Money and Marketing Makers with Liz Campbell

Money and Marketing Makers is a program designed to help business owners grow their profit through improving their marketing and better managing their money.

In this episode, Liz, who did the first round of the Makers, shares her insights into the program and the changes it made in her business.

In this Episode:
08.16: Why Liz joined the Makers and what she wanted to achieve
15.21: What is the Money & Marketing Makers program
17.15: Liz’s biggest learnings from the program
24.54: What Liz changed in her business since the program
33.36: The changes Liz experienced in herself since the program
38.44: Advice for those thinking about joining the program

Links:

LIZ CAMPBELL WEBSITE >
LIZ CAMPBELL INSTAGRAM >
FREEBIE: 27 SMART WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR CONTENT >
CLARE WOOD SERVICES >
CLARE WOOD INSTAGRAM >

Liz’s Bio

I am Liz Campbell, The Word Stylist, a journalist and editor of 16 years, word nerd and the team leader at EC Writing Services with over 6+ years of business success from the power and beauty of words. I work with established businesses (people in business a few years) who are ready to transform their content, business and their life through the power and beauty of words.

I have a team of professionals who love content writing and everything it does to help you achieve excellent results in your business and beyond. Our team is made up of social media content creators and writers, happiness experts and virtual assistants who are here to give you all the support you need to meet all your business objectives and content goals.

Transcript

Today on the podcast I have a special someone joining us. This is Liz Campbell from The Word Stylist and she is actually part of my program Money & Marketing Makers. So I wanted to get her along and she can share some behind the scenes secrets from inside the program.

You’re listening to the Clare Wood podcast, where we talk all things business, finance, marketing, and mindset for entrepreneurs, sharing practical tips, and actionable advice to help you take your business to the next level. Introducing your host: me! I’m Clare Wood, I’m a numbers geek, a travel lover, and a reality tv addict, and I’m here to empower you to create an extraordinary business and an amazing life, because I believe you don’t have to choose between the two. Now let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

Welcome Liz!

 

LIZ:

Thanks for having me Clare, great to be here!

 

CLARE:

For anyone who hasn’t heard of you, can you please share a little intro about yourself and your business and what you do?

 

LIZ:

I’m Liz Campbell and I absolutely love everything about words and content writing. I’ve had my business for 6 years, and we help people to write profit driven content that gets the results they are always talking about. People always say to me I want more leads and more clients, so that’s how we help people, through WOW words. The business came about after I was a journalist and editor for about 16 years, and when you do something for so long sometimes it just didn’t fit anymore, and it doesn’t make you feel as good as it used to. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and left. I loved the writing and I wanted to do more of that, but I didn’t love the journalism or the newsroom anymore. So I started a side hustle, which I don’t even think it was called a ‘side hustle’ in those days, but I just had a couple clients who I did monthly content for, and some social media and resumes and cover letters, and I took that and ran with it. We’ve done massive pivots, we’ve tried all the things you’ve tried as a business owner, and now we focus on content writing and programs to help people learn to write.

 

CLARE:

I actually came to one of your workshops, when you were running them a while back, and I got so much out of it. One of the biggest things I learnt, that has stuck with me to this day, was you gave us a challenge when writing a blog, you have 15mins to write a 500 word blog, and I was sweating! I think I got to 350 words but I still had this massive ah-ha moment because I used to spend days writing a blog. So thank you, that’s changed how I write and it’s incredible the knowledge you have shared so far.

 

LIZ:

That’s so awesome and so good to hear. It’s such a great skill to have. And it’s one you can learn and it’ll take you through your whole life. When you think about all the writing you do every day – social media, emails, online course, podcasts, whatever it is, across any form of marketing, it means you need to learn how to write and make it creative and compelling for people on the other end of it. One of the biggest challenges is it takes such a long time, they get distracted, writers block or fearful of putting their words out there. But if you can make the space to and sit down and put a timer on, you can see how much you can get done. It’s not as bad as what you think, it’s really awesome, because you have such an amazing knowledge, and then you can just tidy it up. The more you make it a daily routine or regiment, the more you will do and get out of it.

 

CLARE:

If anyone is interested in learning more about Liz, The Word Stylist and her programs, I’ll be sharing all her links in the show notes for today’s episode which is clarewood.com.au/podcast/episode36.

 

Now Liz, the reason I got you on the show today is because you were a part of my program the money & Marketing Makers, so I wanted to pick your brain and let people hear about what it’s like to be part of the program.

 

Why did you decide to join the program and what were the keys things you wanted to achieve?

 

LIZ:

I’d been following you for a while, years really, and you get to a point in your business where you need to inject new life into it. I saw your program come up and I’d seen how you carry yourself online and in person, and it’s all the same and it feels good when you are watching from the other end. You need to learn and update your skills, and I thought from you I would definitely update my skills somehow. The other thing I loved was it wasn’t just another marketing course, it was the marketing AND THE MONEY. I realise now how those two work together in a more comprehensive way, they aren’t separate, and they need to come together to have a successful and scalable business that you can grow. The other thing was, I saw it as an opportunity to meet others, other business owners. My business is online and my team is virtual so having that face-to-face interaction [on video] to turn up to every week was really nice. It was a nice community thing that I felt I was lacking. So it was the program and the community behind it.

 

CLARE:

Thank you! I have to say I was honoured when I saw you join up because you have been in business much longer than me, and when I met you I was so impressed by you, so it’s exciting that we’ve come back together full circle. One of the big things people often say to me is what happens next? But the reality is with my clients, I can work with them for years, and then they come back again, and I say we do the same thing again. We revisit the foundations of your marketing strategy, we check that you have a clear sales funnel, we see how you are cultivating relationships with clients. It’s funny, even the most experienced business owners take something away from revisiting those processes again. And the money side, even the most experienced entrepreneurs ask, what do all these numbers mean? How do I create a budget? It’s all good to get new clients and take them on the journey, but there is not point in sales if you are not making more profit, so that was an important part of the program when I developed it. There’s no point filling up a leaky bucket. I’ve worked with people who say as soon as I hit $15,000 per month my life will be fantastic, then they get to $15,000 in sales and see you don’t have any money in your back account, because a lot of the time when we uplevel ourselves, we uplevel our expenses. So it was important for me to take people on that end-to-end process, because as much as I want to tell you how to get clients and have them fall in love with you and buy from you, there is no point filling a leaky budget, so you need to be across your numbers and keep as much of that money as possible.

 

LIZ:

I’ve been there too before Clare. It doesn’t matter what year of business you are in, the basics are the basics. You get to a point when you try ad few different things, and you look at money coming in and out, you plug holes when you are growing and you look at things, and think there is more going out them coming in, because there is more team, or office or something else, so that’s when you can safely say, I need to get back to basics. You have to be across your numbers. And if you need a course like this, or meetings with your bookkeeper to keep you on track, and get a report on your profit and loss. Even if you don’t understand it and you’ve forgotten, get a refresh. Or maybe you have been relying on team members to do it, it’s one of most dangerous things you can do, is outsource it and never look at it, oh I’ve made that mistake!

But with the Makers course, it lovingly forces you to look at everything that you are doing, which opens up a world of opportunities!

 

What is the Money & Marketing Makers program?

CLARE:

Awesome. For everyone listening I better back track a bit. The Money & Marketing Makers is a program I created. I was working with high-valued one-on-one with clients for 18months, and I wanted to be able to serve more people with the way I do things, because I do get great feedback from my clients. The thing I struggled with was, how on earth do I package this all up? So I honed it down to those two areas which I’m passionate about, helping people create a sustainable and profitable business. So that’s why we focus on those two areas – Marketing, so you can you find and bring in new clients to your business and Money – how you can ensure you are right across your numbers. They are the two biggest things I find that people come to me for.

The program is run online, so every week you get your content, it’s a lesson you download and work through and I deliberately made them not too overwhelming, they are powerful, but clear, and not more than an hours work each week. Plus you come along for a live call and that is I’m there live answering questions, people can ask whatever they want and say ‘I didn’t understand this’ or ‘can you show me an example of that’. I’m a big believer in that there are no dumb questions, so I encourage the Makers to ask as many questions as they can each week. The program goes over several weeks and we get to know each other in the program.

 

What have been the biggest learnings that you have taken away from the Makers program?

 

LIZ:

Numbers, numbers, numbers. I’m a words girl so numbers are something I really need to focus in on, and make myself do that work. I love seeing the sales come in, and the abundance in the bank account, I know what’s coming out, but I must admit, since I’ve started focusing on doing some daily money work, I’ve realise how much you need to connect the money side with the marketing side and that’s where you will have the success.

When I look back over my career when those two things have been connected that is when we’ve had massive growth or sales. While I have a team of people to help me with marketing and finances, the learning is, it’s still up to me as the business owner to understand all of it and keep an eye on it. That’s what attracted me to you and what you did, because I haven’t seen anything like that before, there are the money course with manifesting and then the marketing courses you can do, but none that brought the two together, so that was it for me.

I enjoyed the weekly where you helped us, no question was unanswered or off limits. There were people with different business experiences and someone asking the most simplest question, it was so good to go back to. It would trigger something like ‘I was doing that and then I stopped’ so I need to put that back in. Implementing daily routines like filling in my money in/money out document every day, have a look in my accounts every day, and that’s when you get the most success because you can figure out ways to get yourself in front of people and do organised marketing etc. It’s been a real eye-opener. Especially the basics, which experienced business owners may or may not look at, like target market, and it’s some you need to constantly look at. Sometimes you can discount it, or say you’ve done it a few times already, but it really is something you need to keep looking at.

 

CLARE:

These are all tools I use myself, I revisit my marketing strategy and avatar all the time. These are things we go through in the program.

It’s interesting you mention the marketing and money coming together because I am a trained CPA accountant, and at the start of my business I would not spend a cent on anything and I was very conservative, but I had a profitable business pretty quickly. However, I’d forgotten about the marketing side of things, and so focused on money that I forgot, how am I setting up my business to have a continual funnel of business and customers? I’d forgotten to invest back into the business. So as I talk about in the program, it isn’t about the boring accountant saying don’t spend any money, it’s a balance, it’s saying yes, you need to market to grow your business, but do it in a mindful way. And when you do the budgets, we say invest as much as you like, but think what does that mean for your profitability and the number of new customers that you have to get. I love that you took that away as well, the two go hand in hand as well.

 

LIZ:

You can get your bookkeeper and accountants to do up your cashflow and go here you go, this is what we think. And you look at it and put it in a draw somewhere and do heaps and heaps of marketing or something and more money is coming in but more money is going out. So if you don’t understand it you have to learn as you go. And that’s what we learnt in the course, to do your own cash flow, forecasts, expenses and income, your balance sheet and profit and loss and all of those, things you might roll your eyes out as a business owner, but they have to come together. That’s the beauty and special super power you’ve got in this program.

 

CLARE:

I’m just sharing the messages, and ultimately it up to you guys, but the ones that go and implement them and show up, they are the ones that get results.

 

What have you gone and implemented and changed in your business?

 

LIZ:

I love online courses and the accountability. Every time we caught up I set aside not just the course time, but the whole morning, to work on my business through the program. There is always that challenge as business owners, that you don’t have enough time to work on the business, but that’s the challenge, you have to make the time and work ON your business.

With the marketing side of things, it made me be more organised and think, what I am I doing for email newsletters for the next 3-6 months. I looked at each and thought, I can I do this better and faster, or who can I delegate this to. The program gave me new frameworks to work with and because of that I’ve had a look at it my target market and topics etc, and it made me realise the things that are working and the things that weren’t’ working and what we can do better. I’ve started doing Facebook Ads, and I can see that because I’ve gone over my target market, it’s changed the way we do those ads and we will now look at some testing.

From the money side of things, it made me pull the financial team in together again and for me to become the leader of that, and be across everything really well. I now look at the monthly reports I get sent, I can now go in and look year-on-year and see my most profitable times of year, and see the trends month to month.

It’s given me an overall sense of excitement in the business again too.

I’ve put some new processes in place too, like my money making activities each day, and doing research on what others are doing. I used to break my day down into day stuff and dream stuff so each day I do the day stuff, but I also do a thing from my dream stuff which will help me get to my big dream of selling online virtual courses and templates. So that makes me think about what can I do today to get that dream.

Other thing we did too was look at pricing. I haven’t put my pricing up in a long time, and I don’t know why. But by looking at it over time, I worked out I have put my content writing up by 50% and also one of our courses up by 50%, and we also started to focus more on selling templates. So having the time to work on the business and the notifications coming through from you saying we are doing budgeting this week etc, and you made it really fun and helped changed my mindset about it.

The other cool thing I did was look back at all the things we’d done, over the 6 years of business, and look at those things that brought in the most profit and now we only do those things as of this year. The rest I canned, we don’t offer it anymore. And knowing that it was profitable in the past, we put the prices up knowing it should be more profitable now.

So the money and marketing message was really great to look at and take into this year.

 

CLARE:

I’m so glad you have taken so much away [from the course]. There was something you touched on at the start, that struck home. Week 1 we set the vision of your business, because you can take your eye off the ball right, so to revisit that again and think, where are you heading and what do you need to do to start transitioning towards that vision.

Also, I think women in particular, we really struggle with our worth when it comes to putting up prices, so I love talking about it in the program. You aren’t the only one, lots of people in the program have said to me they raised their prices and therefore make real changes in the revenue they are achieving in their business. But I have shared this in one of my podcast episodes, about tripling your prices, don’t just go and whack up your prices with out reason, there needs to be strategy behind it. And again, this is something we go through in the program.

Thank you for sharing your results though.

 

What changes have you seen in yourself and in your business?

 

LIZ:

I feel smarter! I feel like an intelligent business person, more organised. I think in your business you can get to a point where you have tried all the things and you look to consolidate, and feel like a business person. Like university, in your first year, you are fumbling around doing all the things, but by the 5th year you have got it together and everyone knows who you are and you can punch things out, and I feel this is the same in my business. I feel like I’m more organised, I’ve got daily routines in place and when you get busy you start to skip your meditation and exercise etc, but if you get it into your daily routine, it makes you feel better and want to go in and do more things in your business.

I feel like now I’m able to have financial freedom and get closer to that big dream, that vision.

Sometimes when you’ve been in business a while you just need that confidence booster and when you look at the business basics, it gives you a starting point to do things smarter and better, and see your own vision come to life and have your business part of your life, not taking over it! I feel more in control.

 

CLARE:

You have always been intelligent! But yes, I think learning new skills always gives you more confidence. You can know you are right across things, you know you aren’t floundering, you know you have a plan and you are working towards it.

 

LIZ:

I think too, if you do any course, you always take something away, you always feel smarter for it. But when you do the right course and surround yourself with the right people, like you, you do feel that air of intelligence and confidence. No matter how long you have been in business, if you have been in business for 20 years you probably need it even more! Do what you need to do to get that renewed sense of excitement in your business.

 

CLARE:

You know what the principles are, and what you should be doing, but having that accountability makes such a difference doesn’t it.

For anyone listening, and thinking of investing in the Money & Marketing Makers Program, what advice would you have for them?

 

Advice for those thinking about joining the program

 

LIZ:

I would say have a look at what Clare does online, see how she carries herself, read her testimonials, see the type of content she shares, then times that by 100, because that’s value you are getting. Clare already shares amazing free content with the public and gives so much, but what you in the course is unquestionable.

If you want to change your business this year, improve your knowledge around money and marketing, if you are looking to make better decisions in your business and how to create profitable business. I don’t know the statistics but I know it is a low the number of businesses who are actually profitable in Australia, and not a lot are making money, maybe about $40,000, and if you look at it you can make more in a ‘job’, so if you want to change that, look at Clare’s next course.

You are a very giving person and a very patient person with all the questions you get asked, and you tell the same answers in different ways so that everyone understands it. That’s the best thing about having someone keeping you accountable, having someone answering your questions and help you as much as possible.

And as I said before Clare, I think it is your super power bringing together both the marketing and the money and one of the biggest two areas businesses struggle with.

So if any of that resonated with you, the Makers course is the one for you.

 

CLARE:

I have goosebumps, I’m not paying Liz for this, I am so touched. It’s been an honour having you part of the program. I love watching you online and I can highly recommend Liz’s work. If you want to get in touch, her details will in the show notes at clarewood.com.au/podcast/episdoe36.

And Liz, I know you have an epic freebie to share, would you like to tell us about it?

 

LIZ:

Yes, I have created an epic freebie because one of the biggest issues people have in creating content is that they don’t get a result and they don’t understand they may need to put it out there to a wider community on social and in different ways. So I have pulled together my best tips for content promotion. Basically, what do you do once you have a piece of content like a blog or a download, what do you do with it and how do you get it out to more people. I’ve got 27 smart ways to promote your content, and what it does it makes you feel confident. You aren’t promoting yourself which makes us feel a bit icky or salesy, so if you can promote your content, you actually feel like you want to do it.

Go to my website ecwritingservices.com, you’ll see it there in pink!

 

CLARE:

I’ll also put a link in my show notes for it.

Thanks for joining us Liz, and coming on the show.

 

LIZ:

Thanks, I appreciate you having me.

 

CLARE:

Thank you so much for joining me today, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes, and I’d be so grateful for a review on apple podcast! If you’d like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump over to clarewood.com.au/podcast and remember that Clare is spelled CLARE, have a wonderful week and look forward to chatting to you again soon!

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