Simple Marketing Practices That Built a $300,000,000 Business

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree Leadership. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey, with over experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. When I first launched Financial Peace University, there was no marketing strategy. We were selling, we were advertising, and I just kind of put it out there. And people started talking and one church told another. and one couple shared it with their friends, and that word of

Is really what lit the fire. But nowadays, marketing doesn't feel that simple. Most business owners I talk to are overwhelmed. They're asking, where do I even start? On this episode, Entree Leadership's John Falkins is sitting down with Ramsey. Chief Marketing Officer, our CMO, Jen Sievertson, to walk you through what marketing should look like in the early stages of your business, where to start, and how to test what works, and ways to get the word out without spending a ton of money.

of money. Let's get into it. Well Jen, thanks for being here. Oh, happy to be here. You've been here 16 years. Yes. Seen a lot of growth. Yes. I know one thing that you've done is you've talked to a lot of our audience over the years as entree leadership events have been here. And a lot of the questions we get are kind of how to get started. Mm marketing, you know, you're the CMO, this is your world, but for the small business owner.

It's so overwhelming. Yes. Where do you where do you suggest they start? So first of all, I think we should demystify marketing. It's not rocket science. Let's do this. This is not rocket science. Marketing is simply communicating the value of your product or service. Right. There's a lot of different ways to communicate that. But that is what it is at the basics. Right. You're just trying to get the message out about what what it is that you do well, what it is your business does.

Okay, so that that does make it seem pretty approachable, pretty simple. I I do hear a term about getting getting the word out. I hear this term Megaphone. Yeah. You know what is a megaphone, and uh why do we use that term maybe? And and which one should a small business owner focus on?

Yeah, so megaphones something we probably m use more here at Ramsey than maybe some some other places. But but there is a concept that that um translates from that to small business or really any business and that is Um the idea of getting content out there about your business and about what it is you have to offer. So

A lot of people will call that content marketing, but really it is content. It can be written, it can be a podcast, it can be social media, it can be, you know, anything that you're getting. kind of what it is you do out there or tips and tricks about what it is you do and

um out there in various ways. Out in the market. When you're sitting with a small business owner, what do you like them to focus on? When they're you know, what they have to spend is sweat equity. They don't have a lot of money to spend Yeah. So if you're doing this yourself Ask yourself what you're comfortable with, right? And that's really where you should start because if you're not outsourcing this or you don't have somebody on your team to help you with it.

I think more the question is what are you comfortable with? Okay. And so if that's written words, okay, then you wanna focus on articles that maybe you post on your website. Okay. Or that you uh you know, little tidbits that you're writing and posting on social media on Instagram or Facebook. and getting the things out there that you can do. The thing that you need to focus on, um, if you're doing this yourself, even if you're not doing it yourself.

is what's your what's your plan? Like have an actual plan, have a you know, a calendar, have um plan for consistency. Don't just wing it. Don't just like when you feel like it, go and do it. No, actually have a plan and be intentional about the content that you're putting out and the frequency with which you're putting it out. and make it so that the audience that plugs into you knows what to expect and the regularity that you're gonna do that.

Okay, so you choose one of these ways to get your word out. You make a plan. Uh this this starts to get personal because I'm a I'm a wing it kind of person, which I know isn't always good, but you've got a plan that drives consistency. One thing that I kinda hear people talk about is is they don't know if it's working. How how do you how do you know if something's working and sho maybe I'm asking you two questions, but Should you just do one thing and just

Chase that or should you test different things? What do you think? I think you should do as much as you can do well. Okay. Okay. Okay, good call. Um and you know, it's it's great if you've got the bandwidth and the ability to try different things, you should. Okay. And the way that you know, like on social media, for instance. Whether or not it's working is are people engaging with it? And engagement on social media is super simple. Do people comment on it? Do they like it? Do they share it?

That's what engagement is. Okay. And so are they doing those things and are you hearing even from your customers that they're seeing your stuff, right? What should your mindset be when you try this stuff if you're brand new at? I think you need to ask did you not give it enough time? One

Two, were you not consistent with it? Okay. Or was the content you were putting out not not good? Right? There's other things too that you can try when you're starting out, things like word of mouth or referral marketing where your existing customers You're incentivizing them to talk about you and spread the word on your behalf. So maybe that is a discount on future services or products.

Or it's some sort of incentive that you give to them and give to a person that they refer. So, you know, hey, if you bring new customers to us, we'll give you ten dollars off and we'll give them ten dollars off their first you know, visit or whatever. Right. However that works for your business. Those are really good ways to get the word out. And you'll be able to measure that one really easy.

Right. Are people coming in from it? Right. And you know, it's a you want to make sure when you're doing that. that you have really honed in your product or service. Right? Because if it's not excellent, then people aren't gonna refer other people to Marketing will make a bad product fail faster. So make sure your product is really good. Yeah, you don't wanna you don't wanna sell it and then build it, right? You wanna make sure you got something really that you're proud of.

But we were talking even earlier and something that I hear questions about is this phrase branding. How do we know to go from like this direct response kind of thing that we're looking for? T to more just like getting the the word out and and all that branding is. Yeah. So let's uh branding like what your brand is is really how do people feel when they experience your product or service.

So that's everything from uh you know, if they're if you're a retail um shop that you know, how does it feel coming into your retail space? Or if you're somebody that operates in people's homes like some sort of H V A C or Plumber or something, you know, how do people feel you know when your technicians or you are servicing things at their house? All of that makes up brand. And then the shortcut, the emotional subconscious shortcut are the the visual things that people might.

See, right. To connect you to that feeling. What what are some of those kind of things? Yeah, so that's everything from how your website looks. to how um your logo presents to any other materials you have out there in the marketplace. So the overall feeling somebody gets, that is your brand, right? but the the identity pieces of it are are kind of the branding. Okay. And so you're really more referring to, hey, brand marketing. When do we go into brand marketing versus a direct response?

Like direct response might be your paid media where you're paying for ads on social media or search engines. But uh brand marketing is more, hey, what is this feeling? What is the essence of what you're trying to convey? And for a lot of people, um That comes kind of much later, if you will. You're probably gonna step into more direct response because talk about

whether or not you know it works, you know whether or not your paid media works. Do people click through and fill out the lead form or buy the thing online? You know exactly. That's very measurable.

Brand marketing it's very hard to measure, right? So that's kind of where you're at a place where you're ready to scale and you have the ability to scale, right? Um you can really turn it up. You can also turn up your direct response at the same time. But It's it's getting your name out there in a way that you're top of mind when somebody needs

Okay. So what I take from that is You're doing this direct response kind of marketing and you are actually making money from your marketing and that that budget grows and that gives you the revenue, that gives you the money. to spend on branding. Is that what you mean when you say A or is it something else? So that is part of it. Yes. And then the other part of it is is your business operationally ready to scale up? Meaning if you start layering on brand marketing, which usually takes

let's call it six to twelve months to really start to make an impact if you're doing it consistently over time. Is your business able to handle the influx of new customers that you're trying to attract. And that is a a question that you need to make sure you can answer positively. Yeah, because that kind of goes back to what you said earlier about don't market a bad product.

If you market a good product that you're not ready to support, you that'll ruin your reputation too, right? That's right. Yeah. So as you think just in general, what would you want a small business owner? I know you said let's demystify.

What what do you hope that they take away from our conversation or just their efforts around marketing for their business? That again, it's it's not that difficult. That w the one of the the if they're really stuck on where to start Start to talk to your customers. and ask them, just ask them, how did they find out? and first get it s you know, engaged with with your business. Like just ask your customers and start to take the cues from them.

on where it is they're coming from because that's how you can go out and find more people like that. Gotcha. I love that. Thanks a ton. That's a bunch of really good advice for folks that are starting out. I appreciate it. So if you wanna dive deeper into how to start marketing your business and you should check out the entree leadership marketing guide and we'll leave a link in the show notes for you.

Listen y'all, I've always been good at sales, but I wasn't always good at marketing and marketing strategy. And that stuff matters. You can have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you're not going to stay in business very long.

The good news is you don't have to have it all figured out to get started. Don't sit there spinning your wheels waiting for the perfect strategy. Try something, see what works, and then do more of that. Some of the best marketing you can do early on is low-cost. And high trust. So be smart, be scrappy, and be willing to learn. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to like, share, and subscribe for more great leadership content. I'm your host Dave Ramsey and this is Entree Leadership.