Tune in for our chat about purpose and planning through the lens of marketing. This is the perfect time of year to get your plan together – but don’t make it harder than it should be. Patty has some great advice to keep it simple to make you successful.

Nancy: Patty is an amazing coach and with a special sense of woo, who provides coaching and support for women in business. She is practical and wise and incredibly intuitive. Patty, tell us more…

Patty: I work with purpose driven entrepreneurs, who started their business from a place of meaning instead of money. They are typically coaches, or consultants or other types of service providers. At the heart of what we do – if you are clear about your purpose it’s so much easier to decide what’s right for us in our business. That’s part of the soul-aligned work that I do.

But you also know I’m a crazy person when it comes to planning because almost everything we want to achieve in life is possible (exceptions are big asks like being Oprah or going to the moon!) and achievable. Getting your brain on board with this comes from having a solid plan in place.

Nancy: How do you connect? What are you doing right now in YOUR marketing? Take use “behind the seens” and share your secret sauce.

Patty: Connection is exactly the right word. To me, marketing is about finding ways to be in a relationship with the people you serve in a way that is of service to them in that process. Then they can connect with me and understand if I can be a solution for them.

Behind the scenes, I’m always trying to figure out how do I go deeper not wider. When we’re talking marketing, I’m always in favor of deeper. I’d rather see someone do one thing in person than six things online. Online is beautiful but you have to find a way to connect with someone with the online method or it won’t have the juice, it just won’t have any power.

Nancy: Is that something you’re doing for yourself and your business? Anything new that you are doing now that you weren’t doing last year?

Patty: Something super recent; I decided to open up a Facebook group. I’d been resistant to doing it because it didn’t seem like a good place to connect with people. The more I got to see some examples of some people doing it really well convinced me to launch it.

I had a private Facebook group for a community of people who were paying for it and I really liked the engagement there. But I wanted a way to interact with people in a community sense that had an easier touch factor.

I love in person, but this felt like a really good way to do that and start creating a community.

Nancy: Where can people find your community?

Patty: It’s Wealth & Purpose, and you can find it on Facebook here or go to Patty Lennon on Facebook and you can find the link there.

Nancy: Switching gears a bit, it’s the beginning of the year and people are thinking about what they want to do, maybe what they didn’t do last year. They may be thinking about their goals, and the things they want to happen. That means marketing and overwhelm. What advice would you share to help people get started?

Patty: Energetically the new year is really starting right now so there’s no need to feel behind. You are ahead of the game!

Here are the 3 key points I share in my marketing program:

• If you feel overwhelmed it’s a sign that there is too much on your plate. You have to eliminate things. In marketing that means reduce the number of things you are selling. You are trying to offer too many variations of who you are.
• Second, narrow down your market to one two or three options.
• Third, and you know what I say – it has to go on the calendar. If it doesn’t go on the calendar it doesn’t get done.

Nancy: Is there a perfect plan? Do you suggest that we plan for the whole year or what is your philosophy and advice on that? 90 days and pivot, a whole year and revise? What do you teach people to do?

Patty: I think there is something helpful for planning longer term, but I tell people that if you’re going to do that it has to be at the 10,000 foot level. I think the perfect time frame for most people is 90 days. Especially if you have some kind of online marketing component as part of your process. Everything changes quickly so I feel like 90 days is perfect, otherwise you’d be re-writing your plan when what was working changes or new options become available.

It’s a little bit different if you have a team. If other people are going to be handling most of the moving parts, then you do have to get a bit more detailed.

So, figure out where you want to be at the end of the year. Then create quarterly goals that support that. You can be detailed about what you’ll be selling and how that will work and look. That also allows for longer term opportunities come up like speaking or events then you have some visibility to what to pitch as your topic or what areas of your expertise you want to highlight.

Nancy: That’s helpful. It also takes the pressure off knowing you don’t have to write the perfect plan for the entire year. This is a great teaser for those who haven’t experienced your training. As someone who has, I know how helpful it is!

Be sure to connect with Patty on her website.