Grasping at the root

It's been too hot to do anything other than sitting directly under the A/C vent with an iced coffee binging Friday Night Lights so today I'm re-sharing this essay from the archives.

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My journey from Director of Communications and Marketing to Founder and Principal Growth Strategist at Slow & Steady included a stop-over in wellness (I’ll say it - it was the goop-y kind).

And while my time as a holistic nutritionist was brief - it took me longer to recover from my disordered eating - there was one key lesson that I learned in school that I still apply in my work with clients today.

First, let me tell you something about holistic nutrition.

As a modality, holistic nutrition is concerned with finding and addressing the root cause – not just symptoms. So if those recurring headaches are related to hormonal imbalances, your protocol will be focused on the hormones, not just the headaches.

Because if you don’t actually address the underlying cause, symptoms will just keep on coming back.

The same goes for marketing and your business.
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Whether you’re struggling with ineffective or inconsistent marketing or constant overwhelm, that’s just a symptom.

Sure, you could download some swipe files; copy someone else’s strategy or formula; try out the next new social media platform…

And that might work for a bit – like taking something for that headache – but unless you get to the root cause of why it wasn’t working in the first place, you’ll eventually find yourself right back where you started.

If we peel back the onion, those marketing symptoms can be traced back to at least one of the three essential elements of effective marketing:

🌐 Your Business Foundations - this is the $$$ stuff, the core elements that make up your business: revenue goals, cashflow, pricing strategy, business model, services, packages, pricing strategy.

🧭 Your Strategy & Plan - Or lack thereof. I don’t know who to hear this, but if you’re committing Random Acts of Marketing you’re going to get random results.

✨ Your Relationship With Your Business & Nervous System Regulation - Because it’s never just marketing, babe.

Until those three elements are aligned and working together, you’re probably going to end up like this guy:

📝 Here's something to try, The Five Whys. And if you're tempted to mark this as unread and come back to it later, just hit reply and send it to me so you actually get down to the root.

Start with your marketing “problem” and ask yourself “why” five times to dig deeper. For example:

• Why am I inconsistent with my social media? Because I don't make time for it.
• Why don't I make time for it? Because it feels draining.
• Why does it feel draining? Because I'm not sure what to post.
• Why am I not sure what to post? Because I'm unclear about what resonates with my audience.
• Why am I unclear about what resonates? Because I haven't clearly identified who I'm serving and what their problems or needs are.

By the time you get to five whys, you'll likely have a clearer understanding of where your issues are stemming from:

Shaky business foundations, a misaligned strategy or maybe something a little more tender and vulnerable?

I can imaging asking one more why might result in answer like “because I'm embarrassed to talk about my business” or “because I don't want to bother people."

Until next time,

Amanda Laird ​
Growth Marketing Strategist
Founder, Slow & Steady Studio

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