🏷️ How To Do “Just Enough” Marketing — with Amanda Laird

Amelia Hruby [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. Hello and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. We do a lot of things on this show, but lately, I think the biggest one or the one I'm feeling the most is that we offer you permission and inspiration to create the business of your dreams and to release all the sticky shoulds that come along with launching that, especially that sticky should of social media. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome to Off the Grid. I'm Amelia Hruby. I'm the founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio and as you've likely guessed, the host of this podcast. As always, I want to invite you to download the free Leaving Social Media Toolkit. It includes three tools that I use to leave social media and launch a business without it, including the very popular list of 100 ways to share your work without social media.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:18]:
You'll find all of that at offthegrid.fun/toolkit or at the link in the show notes. Head there and get the goods for free. So that shared, today, I am excited to introduce our first guest of season three of the show. Amanda Laird is the founder and principal strategist at Slow & Steady. Since 2008, she has led countless communications projects from concept through launch for small and large businesses, nonprofit organizations and solopreneurs. As a former holistic nutritionist, Amanda is also an advocate for reproductive health and wellness. She was the host of the Heavy Flow podcast from 2017 to 2020 and is the author of the award winning Heavy Flow: Breaking the Curse of Menstruation. In her work at Slow & Steady, Amanda draws on her 15 years as a creative communicator, writer, and holistic wellness practitioner, as well as feminist marketing and business frameworks from Kelly Diels, CV Harquail, and Jennifer Armbrust, the last of whom is actually how we met when I used to work at Sister before I launched Softer Sounds. So, Amanda, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you're here today.

Amanda Laird [00:02:28]:
Thank you, Amelia. I'm excited to be here. I am a longtime listener, first time caller, so this is exciting.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:36]:
Let's dive right into the thick of it. As I just shared, you are a marketing strategist And one of my favorite things that you say about marketing and I'm quoting you here, you say "Marketing feels hard because it is hard and not because you're doing anything wrong." And I love this because it's something I hear a lot from Off the Grid listeners, and, you know, I can't always relate because I love marketing and sometimes it does feel kinda easy for me. So can you, like, unpack this for us? What makes marketing so hard and why isn't that our fault?

Amanda Laird [00:03:13]:
Oh, we could probably spend the next two hours, like, going through this list so I'm gonna try and keep it to, like, my favorite, reasons. So, yeah, marketing feels hard because it is hard. And I think that a lot of people who are launching their own businesses, they're graphic designers or they're podcast editors or they're launching their creative business, they did not go to school to study marketing and communications. Right?

Amelia Hruby [00:03:49]:
Absolutely.

Amanda Laird [00:03:49]:
That's what I did in my post secondary education, and I find it hard to market my solo business, and I found it hard to do marketing for multinational conglomerates when I worked at a PR agency. See. Right? This is a skill that needs to be learned and built, and it's not just as easy as, like, throwing up a post on Instagram. Marketing always looks easy when we are on the receiving end of these marketing messages, But there's a lot of skill and strategy and thought that goes into it to make it work. So that's number one. Like, maybe this just isn't your area of genius, and so perhaps you are inexperienced or unpracticed, and that's not your fault, and that's just a reality. Also, in the year 2024, we have so much information coming at us as information consumers. Everybody is out there telling you about their stuff.

Amanda Laird [00:04:58]:
We are on social. We get email. We see ads on television, on public transit. Like, we are just bombarded with information and it's hard to break through. I also think that something we don't talk enough about in the kind of solo creative business world is it's never just marketing. There's a lot of stuff that we need to confront and unpack and nurture and tend to when we are showing up and putting ourselves out there. Right? Like, it is incredibly vulnerable to say, "Hey. This is what I'm doing. Buy my thing." Right? Like, that is a difficult thing to do. If we are solo. Oftentimes, we might conflate our work or our offers with our worth. And if that stuff is kind of tangled up, it can easily kind of, like, activate some of those stories or fears or wounds that we have around rejection or not being good enough. I think that's true for anybody. And then if you are living at an intersection of any marginalized identity, if you are disabled, if you're queer, if you're fat, if you're a person of color, if you are all of the above, right, like, I think it just compounds. All of these things make marketing.

Amelia Hruby [00:06:33]:
Yeah. So maybe there are kind of like four reasons I pulled out while you were sharing. Like, one is that marketing is a skill we have to develop, and it's not it's like an advanced skill. Being good at marketing is an advanced skill and it takes time to develop that skill. Also, for marketing to get easy, we have to confront a lot of our own wounds around visibility and around worthiness and around asking for support and receiving money in exchange for things that we're doing. Those are a lot of really deep and core wounds for many people that we have to confront in order for marketing to become easy. In addition to these societal levels and structural oppressions that can thwart our visibility, that can mean that we're going to receive a lot of pushback on our marketing or get trolled for our marketing or all sorts of things on those degrees if we're operating on the Internet, and then also just the time management piece. Like, in addition to all those things, it also just takes time and who has enough time these days?

Amanda Laird [00:07:36]:
Exactly.

Amelia Hruby [00:07:37]:
So from that starting point, what I love also about your work is you don't just, like, give us all of that and then be like, "Good luck. It's hard. Sorry!" You've really kind of used that foundation to then create this framework for marketing that you call the Just Enough Marketing Framework. So can you tell us about that framework? Like how can we all stop doing too much or too little marketing and what does just enough marketing look like?

Amanda Laird [00:08:07]:
I am an elder millennial, geriatric millennial. And so, you know, I built my career on doing the most. And now I am old and tired, and I want to do just enough and get on with my shows and my crafts. And that's kind of like the vibe where I'm coming from. And, you know, one of the things that I think makes marketing so tricky is that marketing in and of itself is just, like, too vague a term. Like, I will sit down with somebody, a potential client or a new client, and they'll say, like, I know I need to do more marketing. And it's like, okay. But, like, what does that mean? Like, you need to be getting out in front of new audiences, you need to be working on your SEO? Does that mean you need to have a way for people to, like, connect with you? Are you talking about sales actually? Like, what does this vague "marketing" mean?

Amanda Laird [00:09:09]:
And one of the things that I think trips people up and plays into the reason why marketing is hard is, like, when you don't have a fundamental understanding of what you are trying to achieve and why, it gets very muddy and it gets very difficult to know what to do, to stick with it, to have the resiliency to, like, keep going if it doesn't work right away. And then, you know, if you just know that you have to do more marketing and you don't understand exactly how that's going to benefit your business or what you're trying to do, you're just probably going to start throwing spaghetti, penne, Rigatoni, cannelloni, like, all of it at the wall to kind of see what sticks.

Amelia Hruby [00:10:08]:
I heard you say, like, clients often come to you and say, I need to do more marketing. Or the even the way you said it, it's kinda like, like they're like, won't make eye contact and they're like, "I know I need to do more marketing, like, I'm aware." That sort of like under your breath thing. And I actually think most people don't need to do more marketing. I think you would agree what's happening is they're doing too much marketing in some of these stages and not enough marketing in these other phases of the customer-client journey And I actually think often when people say "I need to do more marketing", what they actually mean is "I want to make more money."

Amanda Laird [00:10:47]:
Yes.

Amelia Hruby [00:10:48]:
It's like "I'm not making enough money", and they think that if they just market more, they'll make more money. And let me tell In my own firsthand experience, that's just not true.

Amanda Laird [00:10:59]:
So when I talk about just enough, what I mean is actually, like, putting down the phone, stepping away from marketing for a minute, taking a deep breath and looking at the big picture. Right? We need to start actually, like, if you're in this a loop where you feel like my marketing is not working. You need to actually stop thinking about marketing for a second, go back to your business foundations. Right? Like, what is your business? What do you offer? How much does it cost? Who's gonna buy it? How do they buy it from you? These are fundamentals. And so the problem might not lie in your messaging or your assets or your content like that stuff could be really good, but maybe you're not getting out in front of enough new people and attracting New audience members. Right? Like maybe the audience that you already have is a little bit cold. Right? Like, people bought what they're gonna buy. If you're not constantly kind of getting in front of new people, Sometimes the sales can dry up. Right? So are you attracting? Right?

Amanda Laird [00:12:14]:
Are you doing the right type of marketing to attract new people. Are you guessing on a podcast? Are you optimizing your blog post for SEO? There's all kinds of things you can do. And then once people do find you, are you giving them ways to actually connect with you? Get to know, like, and trust. Right? And oftentimes, I find that this is, like, the layer where people do more than they probably have to because it's like more blogs, more social, more emails, and, like, all of that stuff Is important things that we need in our marketing strategy to give people the information that they need to make a decision about, can this person solved my problem? Do I jive with their vibes? What have you. Like, that connection piece it's almost always there and overinflated when I look at somebody's marketing.

Amanda Laird [00:13:15]:
And then here's the good and bad news. You also have to sell. Sales is also a part of this. Right? Marketing doesn't exist to just do marketing. That is a hobby. That is an artistic practice. Right? But if you are writing these emails, making a podcast, whatever it is that you're doing in service of a business, then your marketing needs to connect into a sales process. Not only do you need to have that process exist, like, there needs to be, like, a buy now button or a book a call or apply to work with me. I'll write you a proposal. You need that process, but you also have to remind people that you are a business and you have things for sale and invite that sale. Jen Carrington, she refers to it as turning your light on, which I just think is so smart. And you have to turn your light on and say "I'm open for business" and tell people that you have things to buy and provide them with the opportunity to do so.

Amelia Hruby [00:14:33]:
Yeah. I wanna pause us there and just like highlight many of the things that you said and I know that there's a there's a fourth fun one in your four marketing activities, so I promise we won't we won't skip it. But I love Jen's, like, turn the light on advice. And then sometimes I also think people turn the light on and then they never actually sell. Like they say like, "I've got an offering, here it is," and you put it like in the PS of an email, but you never send any sales messaging about like what problem does this solve for people, what makes your solution to this problem, unique or beautiful or exciting or specific to you and who you serve. And, like, why is now the time that people should want to do this with you? Like that's a great way to just break it down and go from just like, "I have this thing available for purchase" to selling it. And I know that that can feel weird or manipulative or there's a lot of critiques of coercive sales and I agree with them, but I think the fear around that shouldn't hold you back from doing any selling. Like, you do have to sell.

Amelia Hruby [00:15:37]:
You can't just say you have a product available. Because even if you say that a lot of times, if you're never helping people along the path to understanding if that product or service is for them, they're not gonna go any farther than being like, "Cool, Amelia's got a new podcast workshop up there. Like, good for her," you know?

Amanda Laird [00:15:56]:
Exactly. 100%. And also, another piece to underscore though as well is, like, marketing takes time. So I can share an example from my own business and this was happening to me. Right? We're, like, I'm sending the beautiful perfect email and, like, why am I not selling out? And so my hypothesis was that I had a cold audience and that the people who were in my audience had bought everything that they were going to buy, and I needed to find a new audience to fill out my spots at three 1-on-1 mentorship spots to fill. So I went out and created a campaign. I bought ads because I was trying to do it fast, so I went ads because I didn't have time to cultivate relationships to pitch myself for podcasts. So I went the ad route, And I used, like, the tried and true launch formula: Freebie webinar into, automated sales sequence. And I sold three spots.

Amanda Laird [00:17:08]:
I wanted to sell three spots, I sold three spots, brought on three new clients. And after I did that, I went through my sales sequence and I literally went through each email. Who clicked on what? These new clients that I brought in, when did they subscribe to my list? How did they find me? What was their behavior? And I was so wrong. I was so so wrong. Of those three new clients. I think, I like, I met with eight, I sent out four proposals and then I got three clients from that, which that's pretty great.

Amelia Hruby [00:17:46]:
That's a great conversion rate.

Amanda Laird [00:17:48]:
But then when I went back and looked at it, only one of them was new. One person had been on my email list for 400 days between subscribing to closing the contract. 400 days. That's more than a year. Plus, I met them a year before they got on my list, And the second client had been on my list for a 198 days and had clicked on my offer 17 times before she even booked a call. So this goes back to, like, business foundations as well, like, what are you selling? Think about your buyer's experience if you're buying a candle. Right? It smells good. It's in my budget. Sure. I'm gonna buy it. The greatest risk here is maybe it doesn't burn clean and I don't like it. What's the worst that's gonna happen? I'll I'll give it away. The one peach candle that travels around the world. Right?

Amelia Hruby [00:18:52]:
Yeah.

Amanda Laird [00:18:53]:
But you're selling like a 1-on-1 partnership coaching service that for, especially if you're selling into like fellow small businesses, like, anytime I make an investment into, like, a service or coaching or support, like, that's a big investment for me. And so I'm not going to buy into that offer in the same way that I'm gonna buy a candle. And I need to know that you understand me. I need to know that our values align. I need to know that you can help solve my problem and it needs to be the right time for me too. Like, honestly, I feel like when it comes to, like, b to b service provider so much of it comes down to being in the right place and at the right time when that person is ready to buy. And, like, when I think about my little campaign case study, right? Like, it just so happens that that one client who found me through an ad, went through my sales sequence, and ended up to buy, like, she was actually already at a stage where she was looking to work with somebody and she had the money and she had the enthusiasm and it was the right time. Those other two, I had to wait 400 days for those stars to align.

Amelia Hruby [00:20:33]:
Yeah. And I think you just pointed to some really important things in there like one is that your marketing needs to align with your model. And this is something I talked about last season with Jessica Lackey, which is, you know, if you're a strategist, a coach, like a sort of high touch service provider, it will take longer often for people to book with you and so, you know, when you're doing your math of how many clients you need at any given time, you need to do some forecasting, right, of like, okay, it could take a year or more for someone who lands on my list to book with me because of this timing piece. That's very different than perhaps an e-commerce "I'm selling a product that costs less than $50" cycle where you are working to capture people much more quickly because it's kind of like either they're gonna want it or they're not if we don't grab their attention and get them sort of on board with our candles or whatever it may be, maybe they'll totally forget about, like you know the attention cycle is different, the timeline is different and the methods that you use are different as well as just like the amount of people that you need in your audience or community at any given time so that you feel like your business is supported financially.

Amelia Hruby [00:21:46]:
Those are also very different. You need to sell way more $25 candles than $25,100 coaching packages or $25,000 graphic design proposals, right? Like those numbers are very different and I think that just speaking to all of this is yet again an invitation for listeners to think about the type of business that you run. A big part of that conversation is like, what are your zones of genius and also how much money do you want or need to make? And when you design offerings, those things need to come together along with what type of marketing will be required to sell this thing. Because something I just keep speaking to over and over again on this show is I see too many people launch the type of offering that needs a large audience while also knowing they never want to build a large audience and so, you know, if you're trying to make a living off of selling a $100 course but you've never had an email list that has more than a 100 people on it, you know, your maximum earning potential sending those emails to that list is not gonna be super high and so once again,

Amelia Hruby [00:22:59]:
I feel like we're just back to this place of like intention and alignment for your model and your marketing and your offerings and I just think that's so important and that takes us back to how we can do just enough because doing just enough means being really clear on what's your model, what type of marketing does that require, and are you doing that type of marketing and only that type of marketing?

Amanda Laird [00:23:25]:
And if I can be my own best client and you know, think about my own campaign. Right? Like, when I looked at the data, I'm like, that's another thing. Look at the data. It will tell you the truth, right, about what is actually happening and what worked. And when I think about, you know, I was shocked, actually. I was flabbergasted to see that these new clients had been on my list for as long as they had. Because I was totally convinced that, like, I told them that I have this thing for sale, like, they knew, but I wasn't, like, to your point.

Amanda Laird [00:24:07]:
Yeah. I told them, but I did not give them the follow-up. Right? I didn't tell them how this is gonna help them, how it's gonna help transform their business, where they can expect to be in four months' time. I wasn't telling that. And so I had done the attraction. I had done the connection, and that's when it flips into sales. Right? Once people are listening, "Okay. I'm here. I'm listening. I like you, I open your email newsletter every week, I'm clicking on the links you need to sell."

Amelia Hruby [00:24:49]:
And I think that leads me into circling way back to the fourth sort of aspect of marketing that we talked about. So to recap, to remind listeners because we, like, took a whole detour since you were talking about this. In the Just Enough Marketing Method, you talk about doing marketing activities that attract, connect, and convert potential clients or customers. This definitely maps onto the framework that I use on this show of grow your audience, nurture your community, sell your offers. As this interview comes out, we're in the middle of a series talking about that. So listeners, like, there's a whole episode on 24 ways to attract, 24 ways to connect, 24 ways to convert. That's all happening on the show as we speak. But you also add a fourth one that I love. And the fourth sort of goal of marketing activities can be to delight. So can you tell me why did you include delight in your framework and like what are some examples of delightful marketing activities.

Amanda Laird [00:25:52]:
Yeah. Those are the fun ones. And I will say, as a client of yours, you're good at this one.

Amelia Hruby [00:25:59]:
Oh, thank you.

Amanda Laird [00:26:00]:
You're good at delight. I mean, delight really plugs into relationship building, right, and relationships. And, you know, when somebody has become your client, you have an opportunity to create loyalty and have them keep coming back to you. Think about how hard it was to bring that client through the attraction, the connection, and the conversion piece. Now you have them. They bought something. Like, think about your house, like, you just buy the same box of cereal or the same loaf of bread or the same almond milk or whatever every week at the grocery store because you like it, it works, and, like, it did what it was supposed to do. Right? So you've created that brand loyalty and that's, like, a lot easier than trying to be like, "Hey, come on over here."

Amanda Laird [00:26:56]:
And so it's in your best interest as a business owner to create customers that keep coming back to you. Marketing people will say, like, it's easier to keep a client than to find a new client, and that's true. So delight them. Right? And actually, that starts with being really good at your job and doing the thing that you said you were going to do. So if you promise to 10x their revenue, then 10x their revenue, and they are going to come back to you every time they want to do that thing. Right? And they're going to talk about you when you're not around and tell their friends and they're gonna refer you, and now they're marketing for you. Right? So, and that takes some pressure off you.

Amanda Laird [00:27:48]:
And, you know, delight is stuff, I think, like, having a nice, alright, like, an easy seamless, like, intake process. Right? Like, that goes into delight. It was so easy to work with you. And then it's like little tweets. Right? Like, a postcard in the mail, a thank you, shouting out your clients in your newsletter. Right? Like, these are just little things that are actually the easier things to do as well, like just being nice and delightful to your clients are going to go such a way and is also it is an important part of your strategy.

Amelia Hruby [00:28:32]:
Yeah. Oh, I love this. Delight is one of my favorite parts of the client retention process or of the marketing process at large. I feel like things we do at Softer Sounds, just to list off more ideas for people, we have an annual client appreciation party where I make a presentation of client superlatives and we go through all the shows we work on and everybody gets a little, like, cute award and like a pretty slide they can share if they want to. I send a card every time a new client comes on. They get a postcard from me with a handful of stickers that only go to clients that are very cute. We have a lot of playlists that I send out at various times.

Amelia Hruby [00:29:14]:
We have a clients only newsletter that goes out once a month with both like updates they need to know like we're gonna take a break for the winter and fun things like "Here's the best thing I've listened to all month that we didn't produce, you're gonna love it," things like that. I love gifts. We send birthday cards to clients. Like, this is just stuff I like to do because the gift giving is one of the love languages I like to provide. So, like, that makes it easy for me in this sense of, like, it's very natural instinct. But I also will say too, like, depending on the type of business you run will determine the type of delights that are appropriate.

Amanda Laird [00:29:52]:
Yes. And delight cannot be sacrificing, attracting, connecting, or converting. Also, do not be putting all of your effort into a client only newsletter when you you only need to have four clients. That is not the best use of your time.

Amelia Hruby [00:30:10]:
Absolutely. And, like, I just wanna caution people, like, to keep in mind your own economics when you're providing delightful things. I love cards because they cost not that much to buy or send. I use a service called Postable that has a client address book. It has very affordable, beautiful cards I can just type in and ship off to my clients for a couple bucks, like, things like that that fit within your pricing structure and your profit structure and feel really good to people to receive.

Amanda Laird [00:30:40]:
Do just enough.

Amelia Hruby [00:30:41]:
Yeah, just enough, exactly. And it can be free and it can be easy. I was just saying on another podcast episode that, I just purchased something from a shop called Bandeau and when they sent me the receipt, at the very top of the receipt, it's like, we made a fun page of free stuff for you. And it's just a URL where they have like free coloring pages and like planner pages and sorts of different tracking devices and stuff and they only have to put it together once and they just send it in every thank you for your purchase email and that was such a fun way to get me back onto their website to think about maybe buying something else. Right? So simple things like that.

Amanda Laird [00:31:17]:
I have another good delightful example. So full disclosure, she was a Slow & Steady client. However, I bought it with my own money, and I would have bought it anyways. And it was from a company called Knitted Bliss and she makes embroidery kits and she includes, her little piece of delight, is she includes a needle minder, which if you are not a needlepoint person is like a little magnet that you can stick to your hoop and you stick your needle to it so it doesn't get lost and it's in her logo. And, like, first of all, I didn't know that these existed and my couch is filled with needles much to my family's chagrin. So I was like, "Wow. Incredible." And now, you know, I finished the kit that she made months ago, but I use that needle minder every day on all my other projects. So the next time I am looking for a project, I am looking for a kit, or somebody asks me about a kit, she's gonna be top of mind.

Amelia Hruby [00:32:26]:
Yeah, exactly. It's just like staying with people. Delighting them is a way of staying with them and the longer our client relationships are the more sustainable our business becomes, I think, no matter what type of business that you have. And so I just want to see more delight in our marketing and in our lives personally.

Amanda Laird [00:32:45]:
Yeah, totally.

Amelia Hruby [00:32:47]:
So I want to wrap us up with two questions about social media. So first of all, I know that you help your clients with social media strategy and while Off the Grid is a podcast about leaving social media, lots of Off the Grid listeners are still on Instagram, TikTok, X, wherever they may be and they're just coming here for ways to learn to do marketing that aren't social media centric. So I can't help them with that, but I think you can. So can you tell us, like, just some thoughts on how do you do just enough social media marketing?

Amanda Laird [00:33:21]:
Oh, that could be another two hours, Amelia. It goes back to following that framework. Right? Thinking about what kind of business do you run, and who are your clients, and what is your sales process? What is your buyer's journey? And then what role does social media play in that? And you have to, I think be super clear on are you using social media to attract new people? Are you using social media to connect with them? And I know more and more and more, especially with, you know, service providers, which is most of my clients are service providers, like, social media, unless you are really investing time, energy, and money into creating content, boosting content. you know, unless you are an influencer, it's really hard to attract a new audience. And so is that your primary goal and objective for using social media, question mark? And, like, if we were having this conversation, I feel like even, like, two years ago, it would be like, yeah, social media, a great place to attract new clients. Right? But it's just not the reality.

Amanda Laird [00:34:40]:
And so maybe thinking of it more as a connection strategy. Right? My mind in particular goes to, like, Instagram. I have a complicated relationship with the Gram as so many of us do personally and professionally. But, you know, one of the realities is when I hear about a business or I hear about a person, like, I looked them up on Instagram. And so I didn't discover them there, but now I'm looking at their content. I'm looking through their Instagram, as a way to connect with them. Is this a person that I want to learn hear more from, stay in touch with, learn more about the business? And so more and more, I'm looking at it more as a connection piece, and I want people to do just enough as well.

Amanda Laird [00:35:33]:
Like, I think if you are writing blogs or newsletters or creating a podcast, I don't think you need to then, like do something else for social. Right? Like think of it as an amplification tool you can take. I mean, this is, this is a common strategy. I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but you can take larger pieces of content And then kind of shrink them down and chunk them out and use them on social media and other places. And that seems to be what's kind of working in the framework these days.

Amelia Hruby [00:36:12]:
So use it for connection, use it to repurpose content. I'm also still hearing people be like, just hang out in stories, feed posts are dead.

Amanda Laird [00:36:23]:
Totally.

Amelia Hruby [00:36:23]:
I think those are like really easy straightforward pieces of advice. And just like I think as you're kind of speaking to, like be really aware of how much time you're spending there and be really aware that it's probably not making you money in the immediate moment. Like our connection activities are often for long term plans and so have that in mind while you're investing time on any social platform.

Amanda Laird [00:36:48]:
Exactly. Like for me, I haven't been actively even posting on social media. However, when I have a connection call or discovery call with somebody and maybe we're thinking about working together, you know, I'll follow them on social and I will like the post. I will comment. I see something else, I will send it to them. Right? It's like, if that's where your clients are, it's an easy way to keep in touch with them there. But, you know, the first question too is, like, also be honest. Right?

Amanda Laird [00:37:23]:
Be honest about how you're like, why you're using social media and is it working because what I often see as well is, like, what I call the panic posting cycle, where it's like you're fretting about something in your business. You feel like it's not working. You're in the feels. You're probably ovulating, if you menstruate and you're, like, questioning everything, and you're like, oh my god. It's not working. I need to, like, do marketing or I need to do more marketing. So then you just throw something up. There's no strategy behind it. It doesn't connect in with your sales process. Then it doesn't work, and now you feel worse. And, like, sometimes, I think we also get stuck into, like, making content and particularly for social and it makes us feel really busy and it feels like we're, like, working so hard on our business, but it's actually not doing anything, kind of like procrasti-posting and things like that when we could actually be, you know, delighting our clients or doing in-person networking or depends on your business.

Amelia Hruby [00:38:34]:
So no panic posting is perhaps a good resolution for 2024 if you're still on social media. And my last question kind of speaks to that "if you're still on social media" bit because last year we had, I think a really great conversation about this sort of prompt that had sparked you of "is leaving social media a privilege?" So as we wrap up, can we talk a little bit more about this? Like, can you tell listeners, like, what spurred that question for you and how are you thinking about it today?

Amanda Laird [00:39:07]:
So I love Virginia Sole-Smith. She is an author. She has a great Substack newsletter called Burnt Toast. She has a great podcast and she came from the world of traditional publishing and now she makes her living off of Substack. And one of the reasons why I love Virginia so much is because she's very transparent around her business operations and is very generous sharing kind of, like, what works for her and her learnings and her experience. And so last year, she wrote a newsletter that was like, "Yeah, I'm kind of doing, just I've decided to do just enough on social media. I'm no longer looking at that as part of my marketing strategy."

Amanda Laird [00:40:02]:
I'm not deleting my account. I'm not leaving social media. I'm literally doing the bare minimum because what she learned was it's not a revenue generating activity for her, right? That's not where people find her Substack. It's not bringing people into her Substack. It's not converting them into paid readers. And there was a commenter that had said, well, "I think it's a privilege to like, it's good for you, but I think it's a privilege to be able to use social media." Now, like I said, I did respond and I said, "Well, actually, I think you have a lot more agency then you think you do," and the original poster did not respond. So I think we're kind of imagining what, we don't know for sure what they meant, but what I think they were trying to say is, like, for Virginia who has you know, she's making six figures off of her Substack. She has the supportive Substack. They, you know, helped produced the first year of her podcast. She had publishing deals with, like, big five publishers. She has a deep network, large followers. Like, yeah, for sure, it's easy for you to leave social media. And if you don't need social media to get your workout, well, that's a privilege.

Amanda Laird [00:41:30]:
To which I say, well, using Burnt Toast as the example, it doesn't make her money. That's not where she's finding her paying subscribers. Right? Yes. Maybe. You know, I subscribed to her newsletter. I also follow her on Instagram so maybe there is a connection relationship building piece there, but she's taken the time to build an audience outside of social media, you know, so is it a privilege to not be using social media to find her work? Like, I don't think that's really what we're talking about here.

Amelia Hruby [00:42:13]:
Yeah, it's something I've also seen Anne Friedman say more directly like acknowledge that she seems to agree or believe it's a privilege to not be active on social media. And in both of those instances, that's coming from journalists who have been in their field for a long time, had book deals and have built, as you mentioned, very deep networks. And for me, this sort of question of is leaving social media a privilege, well, depends on how you're looking at it. So I think like for many people, using social media is a privilege. Having a phone or internet connection that can use social media is in itself privileged if we're thinking about this on like a global scale. So then from that position, well you're privileged enough to be on it now like, and you're gonna leave it? Like, you're gonna abandon that? Like, that's one way we could look at this conversation. But often when it comes up, and I think this was part of what we originally talked about and it's the blog post you wrote about this that I'll link to in the show notes is like, often when people are sort of seeing someone do something like this and they point to it and say like, well, that's a privilege you have. I think beneath that is like, that I don't have and I'm not speaking to this original commenter. This is now, like, more universal.

Amelia Hruby [00:43:28]:
I've seen this conversation happen a lot of times. But it's like I think it comes out of fear. That's part of what you wrote in your blog post is like, "I don't wanna be on social but I have to be because I don't have the career you have that I'm now identifying as your privilege," and I think that just flattens a lot of the conversation. And part of why I wanted to bring it here is because what I'm trying to do on this show is invite people to just expand their imagination of what's possible for them. And is leaving social media a privilege? Maybe, maybe not, but I don't think that's really a helpful lens through which to view that decision most of the time because I don't think we have an obligation to be on social media and I do not believe social media is the only way to grow a career unless perhaps your goal is to be an influencer and then you probably want to pick a platform and go with it, but any other career I think you can have without using social media well, maybe not social media strategist, but those are my two. Influencers, social media strategists. But it's like you just have to get creative.

Amelia Hruby [00:44:39]:
You have to imagine other ways. I see so many people say I can't get a book deal if I'm not on social media. You can. It might take longer, it might feel harder, you might not be sure how to do it because no one's giving you a clear path forward for that, but it is possible because I know lots of people who have gotten book deals without large social media followings, myself included.

Amanda Laird [00:45:01]:
Also myself.

Amelia Hruby [00:45:00]:
Exactly. Both of us included. And so I think that this question, for me, just becomes this invitation into, like, we have to look at what we're afraid of and then we have to look at what we really want and we have to believe that more is possible for us and we have to like expand our imagination on how to get from here to there and come up with new ways of doing it that other people may not be doing. But I think that so often, and we just try to turn to that pre-paved path, which is such a, in my opinion, academic tendency to be like, well, if I just, or like, we're trained into it in school. Right? If I just do these six assignments, then I'll get the A at the end. If I just take these six steps, one of which is social media, I will get a book deal at the end. And it's like we have to get off those paths. And to me, this question "Is leaving social media a privilege", it's just so entrenched in those paths and I want us to, like, dream differently, I guess. That's my little, like, rant and response to your your many wise thoughts on this.

Amanda Laird [00:46:02]:
Yeah. I really agree with you. I mean, where my mind goes when I'm thinking about this too is, like, if you are doing something that you don't wanna do and you feel like you have to, you're not benefiting from this. Who is? You feel that way because Mark Zuckerberg wants you to feel that way.

Amelia Hruby [00:46:28]:
Yes.

Amanda Laird [00:46:29]:
In that blog post that you referenced, I quoted I forget who said it or where I saw it. It's referenced in the post, but, like, we rely on social media because it's addictive, not because it's useful. And it's designed to make you feel like something is gonna happen if you aren't here. Right? Like, you're gonna miss out on the funny meme or you're gonna miss out on the five figure launch or you're gonna miss out on whatever. And it's in these platforms' best interests. Right? Or the people who are also selling, like, "10x You're following in 10 Days Challenge". Right? Like, you're on social media, it's not making you money. You don't wanna be here, but you're afraid because you're hearing other people tell you that, "No. Really, you need to be here." Well, if you're not making money and you're here, some somebody else is. I hate to always break it down to the systems, but, like, that's by design. Right? That it the the system is working as designed.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:45]:
Yeah, exactly. It's entrapment of its own kind. And I just think like, you know, that fear of FOMO, that fear of missing out. If you leave social media, are you gonna miss out? Yes. But you're not just gonna miss out on cool fun stuff, you're gonna miss out on a lot of really like extractive manipulative gross stuff too. And anything that you're missing there, there are other ways to get and find it. You may have to be a little creative and how you get your memes. But you know what? I haven't been on social media in almost three years and I still look at memes every day in other places.

Amanda Laird [00:48:23]:
One last thought on social media because when I first launched Slow & Steady in 2022, I had been listening to Off the Grid the whole time I was, like, building that business, and I was, like, we do not use social media. Like, I am not going on social media. And then, you know, I launched the business and things were okay and then things weren't going as fast as I wanted them to and I had a following from Heavy Flow and so it made sense for me to reach into that audience to say, "Here, this is what I'm doing now." And then what ended up happening was actually I got a lot of clients and it worked. Right? And then I started to feel that fear, right, of like, "Oh, well, actually, it works for my business. It is bringing me clients. It is helping to get people onto my list." And so I did keep using it.

Amanda Laird [00:49:21]:
But when I think back about the times where I felt like the most aligned, where I felt like everything was clicking, where I was creative and was able to generate a lot of ideas and really kind of go for it were actually the times where I had made a conscious decision to take a social media break. And I find that my business actually works better or I feel more rooted and grounded and steady in my business, more resourced as an individual to actually show up in my business when I'm not looking at social media and looking at what other business advisers and marketing people are doing. And what I have found is that, you know, I'm not immune to that fear either. Right? And when I start to feel wobbly, yeah. I do the panic posts myself. Right? It's like...

Amelia Hruby [00:50:26]:
We know to advise not to do them because we have done that. That's the only way you know.

Amanda Laird [00:50:30]:
Or, you know, I will go to social media to do research because, actually, I'm feeling there's something happening inside of me, Amanda, the person and not necessarily even the business and then I'll turn to social media to do research or get inspired. But then actually, I just feel like more shit than I did before.

Amelia Hruby [00:51:01]:
I can relate to that from my past experiences on social media and even now, I do a lot of like looking to other podcasts for planning and inspiration. It's less common that I get stuck in those compare and despair spirals, but it's not that it never ever happens. I would say like when I was on social media, I felt like that was a frequent experience of engagement there and it's just not so much a part of my life anymore. Now that when I'm researching or engaging with other people, I'm engaging with, like, longer form things that they're creating, Which helps pull me out of that just, like, really quick drop into the spiral of, like, "Wow, this is amazing and my work sucks, and why would I ever bother to make it ever again?" Right? You know, that's the inner monologue going on there.

Amanda Laird [00:51:46]:
I've had the same. Right? Like, that that doubt gremlin has taken residency in my own brain many times before.

Amelia Hruby [00:51:56]:
Well, Amanda, if folks want to stay in touch with you and your work, what are the best ways and places that they can find you and connect?

Amanda Laird [00:52:06]:
Well, thank you for asking. They can find me at Slow & Steady.Studio. I send a newsletter every Friday. That's my consistent piece of content and when you get to my website, you can click on "start here" and that will give you my Just Enough Strategy Toolkit, which has a training and a planner and all that good stuff.

Amelia Hruby [00:52:33]:
Beautiful. Those will certainly be linked in the show notes. I hope that everyone goes and finds them. Their toolkit's a great resource that I have used myself. Thank you so much for being here, Amanda. Thank you listeners for joining us on this just enough of a conversation. We got a little long. Just enough plus a little of a conversation. I'm so grateful that you're here.

Amelia Hruby [00:52:55]:
As always, you can find show notes and more support from the show at offthegrid.fun. And until next time, we will see you beautiful people off the grid.

Amelia Hruby [00:53:10]:
Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Don't forget to grab your Free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by n'Atelier Studio. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. And until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the Interweb.