Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share a free series that spells out the basic pieces of a straightforward, profitable, evergreen marketing system. One that frees you up to be the marketing director of your online business!

This is going to help you if:

• You're not marketing your business now and you want to start
• You feel reliant on referrals and like they're not in your control
• You want to have a “tap” you can turn on to create more clients or customers

When I talk about being the marketing director of your business, that might be a little confusing, so here are there are two different ways that often looks:

1. You're in charge of a one-person business, and you love it

You love being self sufficient and running your business solo. You work with freelancers, but you don't consider them your team and the idea of having a team of folks helping you to run your business makes you feel twitchy.

You act as the marketing director of your business when you make the big picture plans for your business – and then you switch into “doing” mode. You're goal oriented, and you know that your marketing plan is an important piece of levelling up your revenue. Since you're creating the graphics and engaging with your audience, you need to understand the big picture so you can keep moving forward.

2. You have big dreams, and your team helps you make it happen. (Or they will soon!)

You love collaborating with your peers and freelancers, and you know that your vision is too big for one person to tackle alone. You work with freelancers, and you consider them an integral part of your business. You probably have folks on retainer and you know that employees are in your future – or you already have them.

You act as the marketing director of your business when you set goals and the big picture direction for your team. You want to have a solid organic marketing plan that you understand, so you can delegate, hire out the work, set goals, and hold your team accountable to make your next launch or next quarter your best yet.

I work with both of these kinds of people inside UMA, and one-on-one, and I see that having an Uncomplicated Marketing system can help them in three main ways:

• Integrate sales and marketing
• Grow a pool of interested buyers
• Provide mindset tools and emotional support for the unique stress of marketing your own business

Let's break them down:

Marketing tools and education – especially for women – aren't designed to be profitable.

If you or anyone you know has worked in the corporate world, you've probably heard about Cole “from marketing” department or Karen “in sales”. While sales and marketing serve each other and interact, in a corporate setting the departments are entirely separate. In a corporate setting, usually

The relationship between marketing and sales couldn't be more different for online business owners.

For us, marketing and sales are deeply integrated. You start out doing both jobs yourself, often within minutes of each other. And unlike other kinds of businesses, online businesses can scale all the way up to a multiple seven figure business with a team of 5 freelancers or a handful of employees. (I've been working with one of those teams all winter, it's been fascinating!) Even at that level of revenue, in online businesses, marketing and sales are completely intertwined right until your customer hit the “buy now” button.

The marketing courses and content that are widely available for online business owners don't reflect or teach as though that integrated reality even exists.

They don't attempt to connect marketing to what online business owners, and their families, actually need and want.

Confident online business owners know how their best customers find them, and exactly how to attract more of them.

Pure and simple.

Knowing this is so possible once you start looking at marketing and sales together, but audience growth and lead generation aren't addressed in most traditional marketing training.

Having audience growth and lead generation baked into your marketing plan from the beginning is what allows you to create a constantly growing pool of interested buyers. You can skip this step for a while, but neglecting it in the long term dramatically reduces your income potential.

When you know how your best customer find you, and you have a system to attract more of them, you can:

• Understand how changes in your audience growth could affect your future revenue, and adjust ahead of time.
• Easily see where your marketing system has issues converting people to buyers and prioritize solving those problems.
• Create systems that you understand, and then hire them out to freelancers so you can stay in your zone of genius. (Or take more naps! It's up to you.)
• Have more fun with your business, because it's not so mysterious!

It's not the answer to all of your problems, but it's a huge relief and makes

Online business owners who are certain and relaxed have tools and emotional support to cope with self-doubt and uncertainty.

Marketing your own business can bring up a lot of feelings, especially if you're a normal person who isn't perfectly consistent, of you've tried things that haven't worked out how you planned.

Marketing your own business is uniquely stressful. Even if you do marketing for other people, or aren't marketing your business at all right now.

There's a really simple reason why that is: your livelihood depends on it.

NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING!

You can do mindset work and intellectually know that your next email or post isn't going to make or break your business. But the idea that it could affect out financial security is enough to send our nervous systems into flight or fight. Then our brain does its job – it directs blood flow away from the areas for decision making and creativity, and does everything it can to get you to stop doing the dangerous thing.

So it's no wonder that you end up doing email instead of writing, or end up lying on your yoga mat, feeling guilty and scrolling Instagram. Your brain has switched off your option to be creative to try to keep you safe.

Marketing your own business is a totally different ballgame.

It needs a different set of tools.

We need realistic plans, permission to have feelings, and practical integrated tools that make it easier to succeed.

It's a tall order, and I'm not going to lie. It feels big!

But the way marketing for online business owners is taught is barely helpful at all, and I want to change that.

I can't wait to share all the basics in the coming weeks – and I can't wait to hear what you think.

In the mean time, I'd love to hear from you!

Reach out and let me know:

What's your biggest challenge or frustration with marketing right now?