Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

Marketing is the lifeblood coursing through the veins of every successful business. For solopreneurs, it can be the catalyst that turns your hard work and resilience into a flourishing venture. But how do we survive and thrive in a world overflowing with information?

Here's the secret weapon: the Chain of Beliefs. This powerful strategy can genuinely supercharge your marketing efforts, transforming how you connect with potential clients and leading to a tenfold growth in your business.


The Chain of Beliefs in Marketing: Your Power Tool

The Chain of Beliefs outlines the journey your customer takes from recognising a problem to deciding to purchase your product or service. Understanding this journey and tailoring your messaging can significantly amplify your influence, propelling your sales to new heights.


Here's how you can harness this tool and optimise your marketing:


1. Speak to Your Customer's Heart

The first link in the Chain of Beliefs is identifying the problem. What's keeping your customers up at night? What's that nagging issue they just can't shake? By profoundly understanding and speaking to this struggle, you strike a chord, letting them know you 'get it' – this is the beginning of a meaningful relationship.


2. Illuminate Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The problems you solve for your customers are unique, just as you are. Your USP is the beacon guiding them from a sea of potential solutions to your shores. It should be the core of your marketing efforts, continually reminding them why you stand apart from the crowd.


3. Engage with Customer Beliefs

Your customer's perception of your product or service is shaped by their beliefs. Understanding accurate and misconceived customer beliefs and letting them guide your messaging is critical for success. Address misconceptions head-on and affirm positive beliefs, moulding a favourable belief system around your offering.


4. Unravel The Customer Journey

Take the time to map out the Chain of Beliefs, understanding your customer's steps before purchasing. This understanding enables you to address each step, smoothly guiding your customer towards their decision.


5. Provide Meaningful Solutions

You've highlighted their problem. Now it's time to shine a light on your solutions. Show them how your product or service elegantly solves their problem, alleviating their struggle and positively impacting their life.


6. Emphasise Your Uniqueness

Don't be shy to repeat your USP! Make it a resounding echo in your messaging, reinforcing why you're their perfect choice amidst a sea of alternatives.


7. Harness the Power of Social Proof

Nothing speaks louder than the words of satisfied customers. Showcase their testimonials, reviews, and endorsements. Let your audience see first-hand how your offering has enhanced others' lives – a powerful motivator to jump on board.


8. Overcoming Customer Objections

Objections are speed bumps, not roadblocks. Identify common objections and confront them directly in your messaging. Turn their hesitation into a confident stride forward.


9. Adapt and Thrive

Marketing is a journey, not a destination. Keep your finger on the pulse of your marketing efforts. What's working? What's not? Use data and analytics to adapt and refine your strategies, staying on top of your game.



The Chain of Beliefs is a beacon of empowerment in your marketing arsenal. By truly understanding your customer's needs, beliefs, and journey, you create a tailored marketing message that resonates. Emphasise your unique solutions, use social proof, and meet objections head-on. And remember, the path to success is one of constant learning and adaptation.


So, Generation X Solopreneurs, let's leverage the Chain of Beliefs in your marketing to make our mark and achieve exceptional business growth. Our resilience and optimism are our superpowers – let's use them to flourish in our entrepreneurial journeys!


Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

Hans Zimmer is one of Hollywood’s most sought after composer’s – he’s worked on over 500 projects in film and tv from blockbuster movies to documentaries like the Frozen Planet.

Even if you don’t know his name, you will have heard his music.

Of course there are many factors to his success, such as his outstanding talent and being good to work with, but one thing really jumped out at me whilst watching Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel.

He has a client avatar and for every movie score he composes he asks “what would Doris think?”

His avatar comes from when he was playing working men’s clubs in northern England in a band he joined after leaving school.

In his words:

We were the entertainment nobody listened to. We were so bad. Up north, We would be the support act to the stripper. And it was interesting because it was the 80s and it was Margaret. Thatcher and it was coal miners strike.

 

Woh, it was rough up north. People were so frustrated. You know you left London and you entered another world, entered another country and this country was a country that was desperate and it was poor, and it was everything that you could only imagine of the left behind and of the forgotten.

 

And to this day I have this person I write my music for, and she’s fictitious. She’s called Doris and she lives in Bradford, and she has a great coat, and you know uncertain age. She’s got two terrible boys, I mean they are so Ill behaved and her hair dye job isn’t very good, you know and she works really hard throughout the week.

 

And come the weekend she has a choice. She has a choice of going to the pub, having a drink, or she has a choice for coming and seeing one of our movies.

 

And she’s a hero to me because she works hard. And so when she comes to see one of our movies, I want to make sure that she gets her money’s worth. And I promise you I mean, every movie I sit there and I go what would Doris think?

 

Who is your hero? Who is your Doris?


Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

Are you “capsizing in a sea of sameness”?

That’s how Mike Weisman describes the dangers of trying to differentiate your business based solely on pricing or features.

Something that so many try to do and then wonder why they are struggling to stand out.

Instead focus on your customers, how you are serving them, the problems that you are solving for them.

In other words, how do the features of what you sell benefit them and help them in their life?


Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

Over the past 14 years, I have:

  • Failed at one business - that really hurt.
  • Spent far too long trying to understand what I wanted my business to look like and how I could make it work for me and my clients
  • Served over 3,287 clients (and counting)


All of these things have taught me a tremendous amount about what matters in business, and what doesn’t.


These are my 3 cardinal rules for business:


1. Know Your Destination


If you don't know what you want your business to look like, how you want it to support you in your life, how much money you want to make, how many hours you want to work etc etc, then you will never get there.

Instead you'll end up creating a demanding Frankinbusiness that wants you to work all the hours you have, doing work you don't enjoy for very little reward as you continually take detours and chase shortcuts to a mythical nirvana.


2. Go Slow To Go Fast


!! This isn't about procrastinating or getting everything perfect - it never will be perfect, we are always going to evolve.

It is about doing that all important foundational work including deeply and intrinsically understanding the problem we solve, why it's important for our clients and the language they use.

It's the kind of work that enabled a 19-year old Todd Herman to create a carpet cleaning company that was later sold for 7-figures. That business was called "White Carpets Only" and specialised in removing the toughest stands and cleaning light carpets to new again.


Jonathan Boyd, founder of Breakthrough Guitar, exploded the business going from several hundred customers over 25,000 in 10 months because he spent 6 months speaking to customers so that he could deeply understand AND articulate 

in a way that was meaningful the problem they were trying to solve and delivering on that promise.

Go slow to go fast.


3. Implementation Trumps Knowledge Every Time


Knowledge isn't as valuable many of us would like to think. Knowledge doesn't grow a business.

It's taking action, implementing our knowledge, changing our behaviours, getting out of our comfort zones just that tiny bit, day in and day out that gets results, grows a business.

Sometimes we will take the wrong action, sometimes it will be imperfect. That's ok because we can learn from it all. 

Get out there, do the work, get feedback/data, learn and grow from it.

Always be producing 5x more than you consume.


Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

Most people in building a business are playing the short game, looking for wins as quickly as possible instead of playing the long term game – showing up, giving value, and focusing on the principles and frameworks that contribute to building a sustainable and profitable business with solid foundations.

Quick wins are great, but when you think of your business in terms of your ROI in the long term that’s when you build a business that will continue to grow year after year, going from strength to strength instead of ending up on a rollercoaster ride of feast or famine.

Too often these days we see the myth of overnight success in business, without seeing all of the hard work that’s gone before. It’s like seeing the tip of the iceberg but not the huge mass beneath the surface.

We have been taught to expect instant returns, when really we should be investing in our business with the attitude of thinking in the longer term. What we do today may not repay us for at least 3, 6, 12 months and often for several years.

Just like when we invest in property or stocks we don’t expect to see an instant return. And so it is with business.

I know it can seem tough to take that approach when your business is young or you want to escape a job you’ve come to detest, but it really is a far safer and profitable approach to take.

As I say to my clients, go slow to go fast.


Louise Beattie01 Oct 2023

If you dig into any sustainably successful business, that is one that knows how to consistently repeat and maintain its success, you’ll find that they have a deep understanding of who they serve and sell to.

Conversely, not knowing this is the reason attributed to the majority of small business failures (Small Business Association).

 

Successful businesses can tell you in specific way how they can reach their ideal clients, who their clients are, what their challenges and problems are, their fears, hopes and dreams are, particularly in the context of the services and products that they sell.

Yet far too many small business owners and solopreneurs skim over this.

At best it’s done in a general and vague manner:

  • Dog owners vs labrador owners in Gloucester.
    Couples getting married vs couples planning a small and intimate wedding in a Scottish Highland castle.

 

Knowing your client avatar intimately, understanding what keeps them awake at night, their dreams and aspirations, the challenges and problems they face is a basic foundational part of developing your business.

It’s business 101.

It informs all of your marketing and sales – the language you use, the places you distribute your content, the positioning, the offers you make etc.

So why do people avoid getting to know and understand their clients so that they can help and serve them better?

So that they can create more value for them?

So that they can grow their businesses and attract more clients with greater ease?

 

It strikes me that if we truly care for our clients, if we want to help them, give them massive value then surely we would want to get to know them and understand them as well as possible?

And if not because we care for our clients because we care for ourselves and our business and we want to be as successful as possible.

So why don’t we get excited about this?

The good news is, because so few businesses do this properly, it becomes a bit of a secret weapon in our armoury, because if we can do this, we will have an unfair advantage over those who for whatever reason neglect this.

 

That’s why I’ve been investing a lot of time working on this lately.

As part of that work, I’ve created new frameworks for my own use, and also for my clients in the Flourish Business Accelerator and for the Marketing Untangled Course.

One of those Frameworks is the Client Profile. It’s where I summarise each of my ideal client profiles and it serves as a crib sheet whenever I’m creating content and marketing pieces.

You can get a copy of this very Framework by clicking here.

It’s a read only copy, but you’ll see a link to instruction on how you can copy and use it in your own business.

Let me know below if you would like to see more like this…