Are your services not attracting clients that you want to work with? Are you struggling on marketing potential customers?

If this is you, settle in for this episode of The Everyday Intuitive as Heather talks with Laura Meyer, an expert of experts – helping the country’s top thought leaders, influencers, and mission-driven entrepreneurs create profit growth, effective marketing and brand strategy from their zones of genius; about relationship marketing as the “win-win” type of marketing.

Today, Laura will help us thoroughly understand her line of work and her zone of genius:

• What is relationship marketing?
• Why is relationship building important?
• What are the benefits of relationship marketing?
• What are some myths about relationship marketing?
• What are the steps to relationship building?

Enjoy episode 122, fellow intuitives!

Heather Alice: Laura, thank you so much for coming on The Everyday Intuitive.

I am so excited for everyone to learn from you about one of the secret weapons I feel like we have in our lives as individuals, but also in business, which is relationships. Yes. So thank you so much for being willing to come on and talk to us about how you are fusing your passion for marketing and relationships.

Laura: Yes, it’s definitely something that I didn’t even think about until people started asking me. They were like, How do you have such a big business and you don’t run paid traffic? Which I’m a marketer, so I really like paid traffic. I think it’s awesome, but it’s just not something that I ever felt like I needed to do.

Or they said, Laura, how do you know so many people? Or like, How do you have these v i p like celebrity level clients? And I had to stop and think about it and I. I guess I just really believe in relationships, so thank you so much for having me. I can’t wait to have this conversation. I think it’s really gonna help your audience too.

Heather Alice: Yeah. So as you were speaking, one thing that came to mind, and I don’t know if you experienced this, I wanna, I just wanna ask you, and it’s to some extent an artificial construct. Yeah. But the words, introvert, extrovert, ambivert. I love people, but I don’t wanna be around them. Yeah. I really want, that whole thing.

So how do you identify, Would you, how would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I I think when I was growing up, I would put the extra on extrovert for sure. Okay. And then as you have more kids And all the kids all day long, or like mom, all of a sudden you’re like, Can I just be alone and have it be quiet?

And I never crave that until I had three kids under 10. I was like, Wow, there’s a lot of conversation happening in my house. All day long. So l joking aside, I really do see myself as an extrovert. I honestly don’t think it matters. I don’t think it matters at all in what I’m gonna talk about today, because if you are an introvert, all that means is you’re energized by being alone.

And if you’re an extrovert, all that means is that you’re energized by being around people. That’s why I love group. Whether or not making a connection and developing authentic relationships that fuel the growth of your business, I don’t necessarily think that it’s contingent upon any particular personality.

I think more than anything, people are so conditioned to chase fans, followers, and likes on social media, or more than anything they want to. Make relationship building convenient and easy. They wanna be at their computer or be at their phone and be clicking on things and just have their business magically grow.

And it’s not that any of those activities are wrong, but it, the problem occurs when we use them to replace genuine and authentic relationships.

Heather Alice: Oh my god. What a mic drop. I wanna put that on repeat. I wanna set a beat to that and then put it like on repeat, right?

Laura: Yeah. We just discovered we’re the same age, so we know what kind of beat it’ll be.

Yeah. Nineties for sure. Mc Hammer probably. Yeah. So a lot. Can we? That would be great.

Heather Alice: Yeah. I love what you just said. We’re so conditioned now to chase the fans, the followers, and the likes. Sure. Is that a part of us being business owners and individuals who are trying to impact the world in a positive way?

Yes, but we have, I believe, lost the understanding that the power is still ultimately in the relationship. I’ll share a quick story. I have a friend. Who I love dearly, whose work is truly revolutionary and were it to be in the hands of every last human being on this earth. It’s that revolutionary. I think every human being could benefit from it and would benefit from it.

 But and they’re huge on Instagram and social media, but that does not necessarily mean that you can create that impact, right? Because it really does come back down to relationships. What would you say is the thing, My first question I wanna ask you is this, what would you say people misunderstand about relationship marketing?

What are the myths around it? Yes. And then what do you see as the actual truth that you wish people knew?

Laura: Yeah. About it. So good. So I think that a lot of people think that relationship marketing is going into a Facebook group and posting a picture of somebody that you know that is extremely attractive on top of a Lambo that you just rented.

And you,

Heather Alice: I literally had two people pop into my head that I, that do that literally, Oh my

Laura: god. Okay. And they’re. I just made a million dollars last week, messaged me to learn how they think that is relationship marketing and it’s not. In fact, actually, it’s a credibility buster versus a credibility builder and anybody that you attract into your business with that kind of messaging.

It’s more social selling than it is relationship marketing, and I love social selling, but social selling is not relationship market. And trying to pull people towards you because of something manufactured isn’t going to create a, the sustainable company that we all want and crave. So I think that when it comes to relationship marketing, there’s a lot of myths.

I use an extreme there for humor. Yeah, sure. Getting into a room and trying to shake as many hands as possible. I’m trying to find people who will hire you as quickly as possible. And if you don’t see an immediate exchange where people are, throwing their money at you, you’re out.

lot of people think that’s relationship marketing and what that is just extraction mentality. And what happens is because people think that’s what networking is, they go to events and then they get discouraged and they give up quickly cause they think relationship marketing doesn’t work or they’re on the receiving end of.

Exchange and they’re like, I don’t, I’ll just go and run a Facebook ad like this is not

Heather Alice: enjoyable. You’re, I may I share. You’re describing me. Yes. Yes. I really like. The joy of having a podcast is that you get to speak with people who help you through your own struggle. And I will tell you, Laura, I go to network events and it’s net I get approached so much for partnerships.

Yes. And really what it is, hey, can I have your audience they’re not interested in. Yes. I know you have a book coming out titled Win-Win. Yes. So they’re not interested in the win-win. I can feel it, I can actually feel it. I’m like, And so I’ve developed the attitude of Fuck it, I’ll just go run ads and have people leave me alone and do me, because no one is actually in this, to genuinely have us both benefit.

Yeah. So that what you’re saying right there, I have personally experienced and it that is real. And So either way, whether you’re on the giving or the receiving end of it, it feels icky.

Laura: Yeah, it does. And for those of us who have been in business for a long time we, this is natural because it was survival.

Like I was building businesses and I was doing relationship marketing in order to grow those businesses when like soccer work was still filling out his Harvard application. Back then this was the only way to do business. And listen, the men had been doing this on golf courses for decades for Yes.

But women, I think they don’t know how to do it, they haven’t been trained. It’s a lot of it’s conditioning. It’s how quickly can I can, it’s the instantaneous gratification. And wanting that to happen so fast when really we all know that nothing worth doing in business happens overnight.

Nothing. Yep. Whether it’s training a team or building a team or creating a sales funnel or developing key relationships, and I think because of this sort of immediacy that we are so conditioned with, I really hope that the book ends up being just a refreshing take on relationship building and really helping.

The entrepreneurs who weren’t around when you know, but when we didn’t have social media, understand why this works so well when you go about it in the right. So ultimately the first step in relationship building is credibility, right? It’s always establishing credibility and it’s always about creating value.

So we’re doing this right here in this exchange. I think you had reached out to me saying, Let’s do, I’d like you on my podcast. And I was like I only do matching, so I’m gonna have you on my podcast too. And we set it up immediately. And in this exchange of me being on your podcast and you being on mine, my number one goal is cred.

It’s to create credibility with you, your audience, create value. I have no attachment as to whether or not anybody purchases anything I do per se, right? And so when we can be detached from outcome and we can show up from that place of genuine value, that is the first step in relationship building that I think many people wanna fast track or skip.

And what happens is when we fast track or skip it, we end up. Developing very inauthentic and empty relationships. It’s just this tit for ta or what ends up being is friendly chit chat because, and I like friendly chit chat, but I get enough of that on the tennis court. So we, what we really need to do is think about how can I contribute in a positive way to the person in front of me or their audience?

And how can I create reciprocity so that we can show up for each other in a way that continues to build that no and trust. And I think for many people what happens is that again, they want that to happen so quickly cuz that’s what we’ve been conditioned on social media. That when we take the time to actually think about how am I building a bank of goodwill in my life, like, how am I, It’s just like with a marriage or any relationship, right? If we just showed up, who wants to hear from that friend who only calls you when they need something? We drop those people like it’s hot. And it’s the same thing in business. So what we want to do is say, We wanna fill that relationship bank in a lot of ways with the people around us.

So when we need something or when we have a book coming out and we wanna do a podcast for, or when we happen to have an empty spot in our client roster, there is an immediate Oh my gosh, yes. Because of the relationships that we’ve built.

Heather Alice: I love the emphasis on slowing down. And I think in that slowing down, there’s space for us to ask ourselves what is my intention Yes.

In connecting to this person. And I have to tell you, I thought it was, I don’t know if I’ve ever invited someone to the podcast for me to reach out and say, Hey, I’d love to have you on. Where they have a podcast as well. And then they say to me, Yes, and this will be reciprocal. No one has, almost no one has done that.

 I love what you’re saying here because one, you really embody what you’re, you truly practice what you’re teaching here. But also it’s what is our intention, right? What is the intention? If your intention is just to simply make a quick sale, people are gonna feel it. So it’s reminding me of when I was in graduate school, and I had a professor who would always say, Heather, no one cares how much, no one cares if their interaction with you.

So they talk a lot about like your, your counseling presence, right? As a, that was psychotherapy. Of course, I drink coaches now. Focusing on your presence like it is who you are and who you be that people remember. For when they say, Oh, I need somebody to help me with this, or I’d like to partner with someone for that they’re going to remember how you made them feel in the moment.

Yes.

Laura: Yeah. We’re, regardless of whether or not it benefits you, and I think, again, when we can change our lens to look at it from a perspective of how can I add value to the person in front of me, regardless of whether or not they buy from. They refer me, what happens is, will buy from you or they will refer you or they will recommend to other people you, to other people.

Because the two biggest assets we have as service based business owners is our reputation and our relationships and any opportunity that we can have to grow, that reputation does come back to us multifold, and it usually comes back to us when we need it the most and we expect it the least. That’s been my

I love that. Yeah. And so you can tell in my voice and I’m. I’m just coming back from a cold . And last week I went to one of those Vitamin IV centers and I didn’t know that, I knew the woman running it. She had been a nurse for about 20 years. We run in the same mom circles and, I had never had it done before and went in and, I said, Oh my gosh, that’s cool.

Like you just opened this. Congratulations. And she’s I have to tell you, I’m freaking out. I think I might need to get a part-time job. I’m really worried about money. Like you could tell that she just really needed to talk to somebody. So I spent my first 15 years in entrepreneurship in brick and mortar, and I had grown up brick and mortar change, 12 locations.

So pretty experienced in brick and mortar. So I was like, and then she volunteered. She’s I dunno if you heard, I got divorced and now I’m trying to do this business and I’m a single mom. And I was like, Okay, let’s go. So I was like, Tell me how you’re keeping track of your lead. What are you doing for marketing?

She’s I’m all over the place. I’m like, Okay, tell me how you’re tracking. So what I did is I coached her through a lead system, lead management system for her front desk That would be very easy for her to implement. Within hours of me leaving, that would most likely fill up the seats in her small business.

So she didn’t have to go get a part-time job like, I’m pretty confident I left her with directions that would create that result. Wow. Now, could she buy from me? Probably not. My retainers are at a point for one-on-one work that are close to, cost close to six figures a year. So a single mom who is a new business, probably not going to be, making that kind of investment anytime soon.

What I did do is she knows a lot of people, right? So she’s probably gonna be like, Actually, I set my husband in the next day and I was like, Go see her. We both have the same terrible cold that her daughter brought home from preschool. Those are the worst. They’re the worst. The preschool cultures the worst.

They’ll

Heather Alice: destroy you. They’ll destroy

Laura: the house. It’s like the elementary school colds are okay, but the preschool cold.

Heather Alice: Yeah, it’s over. It’s over. It’s over.

Laura: I sent my husband in. I was like, Go see Emily. And when she told my husband, I didn’t even tell my husband that I had this conversation with her. She, when she told my husband, she start, he goes, She was tearing up when she told me.

How your visit went with her. It’s like she’s gonna go around saying that, whether or not I don’t serve that many people locally. But whether or not, no matter what happens, like that value that I created for her, it will come back. And let me tell you, there is people, I’ve been in business a long time.

Different businesses, but been an entrepreneur for a long time. There’s people that, like I connected with 10 years ago, forgot about, and then all of a sudden they’re showing up and they’re like, Hey, I heard you have a consulting certification. That sounds really good. Like you just never know.

And when it comes to relationship building, we’re always playing the long game. And so I think that’s something for everybody to be thinking about is. It’s that mindset switch of where can I create value that I’m just passing by right now. And get into that habit of generosity that then turns into the next stage of relationship building, which is visibility.

Heather Alice: I think that it really requires to do what you’re saying, I think it requires a perennial faith in how much you truly have to give. Yes. And I think a lot of people underestimate the wisdom they possess and what they really, truly do. Have to offer. Yes. And oftentimes I see this in, man, people, when we on, we onboard people into our program, they’re actually really overwhelmed at what the program entails because there’s so much there.

And my response has always been, Why wouldn’t I give it? Why would I not give it? I’m going to give, there’s more where this came from. There’s more where this came. There’s more where this came from. So I think it it’s such a beautiful way to live too, isn’t it? That you can just pour into people and give to people.

And what is so effortless to you is pulling this woman’s business back from the brink. And to you, you’re like, ah, we’re gonna have a 20 minute conversation while I get my, vitamin C drip. But for her, it, it’s life changing. Yeah. And that’s really beautiful. I think. It. I talk a lot, not man, about having a purpose base to purpose first profit next.

Yes. As we walk in our purpose and serve the mission and passionately bring the work that we are here to bring forward, we know the profit comes next. It’s not let, we don’t focus on profit. We want it to be there, but just understanding that it comes through, truly serving. I think That’s really cool.

So just believe that you have more to offer than you think you do and give it liberally. Yeah.

Laura: Yes. I think everybody listening has some kind of gift, whether it is in personal development, whether it’s in life coaching. Whether it’s in business, you just, when you can look at it from a perspective of not what, how much do I lack, but what can I give?

Yes. It’s just a different, like then your whole, your brain is gonna go through a whole different series of thought patterns. When you can. Look at it from that reframe. And I think a lot of people in the, in again, in the space that we are in, where there’s constant comparison and there’s constant, looking at social media feeds, it’s so easy to be like, Oh my gosh.

Everybody has said it all already. What do I have to give? But remember that’s conditioning. That’s not truth. And I remember growing a business when there wasn’t social media. I joke around about this quite a bit with Allie Brown, cuz she’s been around for a long time too. And she was a client and now a friend.

And, We often say Wasn’t that so nice? We didn’t have to worry about any of that. But if we can just block it out and pretend as if, I think it’ll really benefit people who are listening. And then the second stage of relationship building is visibility. So we have credibility, we’ve built our reputation, we’re creating value for people.

We’re operating in reciprocity, and then visibility. So somebody might hear this podcast and say, Oh wow, Laura seems to have a unique perspective. Maybe I’d like to have her on my program or have her on my podcast. And what happens is, I think for a lot of people is they wanna get into closed doors, chit chat, like they’re more comfortable getting into small one-on-one conversations or coffee chats.

But what happens is that all of your time is spent up having these one-on-one conversations that may or may not be a good fit for your business. And so you’re sorting through this and it really is a slow way to grow. Yeah. But if you can then say, Okay, I have credibility in the industry, I’ve.

Credibility in my community, and now I’m starting to create partnerships that grow visibility. That’s when the multiplier effect starts taking place where you’re, introducing yourself to new audiences and vice versa, and over time. The amount of people that start coming, flowing into your community is, is so powerful, right?

Because if somebody hears your story or your values, your beliefs, and they make a personal connection with you, that entrant into your ecosystem is going to be much. More pleasant for to work with for everybody, right? . someone who clicked on an ad and they’re they’re on their heels and they’re like, Eh, I don’t know about this.

We’ll see. Even if they convert, it just, they take a lot more convincing, right? Versus somebody that comes in through a relationship, a referral, a connection. Hearing your, hearing, your voice, hearing that I play tennis and maybe they play tennis, and they just like that, right? All of these, attributes that develop.

Then turn into, the kind of customers that close faster, stick around longer, spend more, and just generally, and take your advice, right? Like they’re generally just more pleasant to deal with, and it creates a business that you enjoy because everything, the foundation of that business was based on mutual connection, right?

, and having that no and trust factor built up before. Business was even done. So that visibility and that credibility is really the multiplier effect for systemized lead flow into a business. And while the outcome is business growth that we’re going for, it’s really the intention when we’re doing the activities that creates that result.

And it’s funny because if we go in. With too much of a, dollar signs in our eyes, right? Then we won’t get that result. But when we go in from an intention of service and gratitude, typically that’s when we do get the result and referrals come into my business regularly all the time. all the time to a degree to which, waiting lists and full capacity.

And those are the biggest problems in my business right now. And, when I look at it, sometimes people think that referrals only happen, they’re happenstance or they only occur like by chance, but they’re not something that I can systemize. But I can share with you that you can activate regular referrals and regular qualified leads into your business with developing credibility and visibility simultaneously within your sphere of influence.

And that’s what I’ve seen take place again and again.

Heather Alice: Tell us a little bit. I, cuz now I just have on my head, I’m like, I know everybody listening to this. It’s like, how can I work with Laura? So tell us a little bit about how you do work with people to help them uplevel their credibility and their visibility.

Laura: Yeah. One thing that I, would recommend is to pre-order my book. So depending on when you’re listening, my book’s available for pre-order until December 6th, 2022. Or it may be available. Again, depending on when you’re listening, so you can go to create your win-win dot com. Okay. If you pre-order my book before December 6th, you get a relationship marketing toolkit for free.

It’s like templates and little systems and a little course in there that you can use, and it’s for the price of the book, which is dollars. So that’s a great way to get access to some fantastic information. And then if you’re interested, I do consulting certification, which we didn’t talk as much about today.

This was more really to support the book, but you could always reach out to me. My website’s joy brand creative.com. It’s joy brand creative.com. Or just find me on social media and say hello. I’d love to hear from you.

Heather Alice: Awesome. I’m gonna get the book. I didn’t know it was already for pre-order. So I’m gonna get it.

Yeah. I love the concept of bringing back the relationship as you were speaking. You were really reminding me of some advice my dad gave me. So my family, when on my dad’s side is back as. Far as they go. They settled a little town in Florida called Cedar Key, and this town is known for fish for shrimping and clam farming.

And my family had a plot of out in the Intercoastal where they did clam farming. And I said to my dad once, Daddy, how did you guys make sure nobody took you like. I often get my southern accent out when I talk about

Laura: my people. I saw that. I heard that coming out. Yeah. Sorry. Now we know. Now we

Heather Alice: know.

Now we know Girl Gulf Coast. Okay. Yeah. But, bring it. Yeah. So I was like, how do you make sure nobody takes advantage of what do you do? Do y’all do contracts or do you have the cop? How does that happen? He laugh. He said, Heather, you shook a man’s hand. And that’s the end of it.

That is the end of it. Yeah. You are going to do what you say you’re going to do. You everybody knows everybody. It’s built on that relationship. And then another thing, they would go shrimping and they’d cast these big nuts. And they’d pull up shrimp, but they would also get all the garbage. Like just stuff that you are not, stuff you can’t eat, Stuff you don’t wanna have.

 And my dad would say it’s much better to get a cane pole if you wanna catch dinner. It’s much better to get a cane pole and just go fish for what it is you wanna catch, take your time. Be intentional. So I just, those, that imagery was coming into my mind as you were speaking yeah, we wanna have, people coming into our business that are, that the right catch, right?

Yeah. The people that you love, that, that love you, that it feels, where there really is a symbiotic relationship there to be had. Yes. So I really do think that this is making a come. For business owners. I think especially for women in business, if we can just get the hell out of our own way, yes.

We’ll realize that relationships are what we do well, I think naturally. Yeah.

Laura: Yes. And there’s so much more to this, and I’m, I talk about it in the book, but it’s just even like when you were speaking, it’s like what Brene Brown says. We just assume that everybody is trying their. Yeah. When we operate from that philosophy and we operate from that mindset regardless of their intention, right?

We always win. Yeah. And I think that’s really important to think about in relationship marketing. I’ll say that until I started doing a lot of speaking and teaching on relationship marketing, I didn’t realize how much of a mindset it is. Challenge it’s more a mindset than it is a tactic.

. And that’s really what the book gets.

Heather Alice: Awesome. By the book, I’m gonna get it right now as we, as we, hang up because I want to go get my bonuses.

Laura: Go get your scores. I love that incentivized you. That means it worked. Yeah. Are you kidding?

Heather Alice: Oh my gosh. We’re getting it work. So we’ll have, for those of you who are listening, we’re gonna have all of the links that Lord just mentioned in the show.

So click away down there and even if it’s after December 6th, I encourage you to, to take a, It’s a win-win, right? That’s the name of the book. Yeah.

Laura: Win title is Win-Win by Laura and the website is Create Your Win-Win. Awesome.

Heather Alice: Thank you so much for sharing your, Laura,

Laura: So good to see you.