EPISODE 225 WITH ANNE LAFFIN: UNLOCKING MARKETING SUCCESS SECRETS

Ready Yet?! Podcast Episode 225 with Anne Laffin: Unlocking Marketing Success Secrets

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello. Hello. And welcome to this episode of the ready yet podcast, where my guest today and laughing and I have been talking about all things marketing, all the things we learned in corporate that are helping us all the things we learned in corporate that are killing us.

Erin Marcus: Before we dive in all that and help some people, you know, let’s shorten their learning curve. How about a formal introduction into who you are and what you do?

Anne Laffin: Sure, sounds good. Well, first, thank you for having me. I’m very happy to be here. Well, so, I’ve been working in marketing for 20 plus years at this point, which went real fast, I’m going to be honest.

Anne Laffin: Started in market research. Yeah, it goes so fast. Which market research is great because I feel like it does give you a good background and kind of why people think and buy and behave, which just helps you out with marketing in general. So started there, then made the leap over to financial services and did marketing and financial services for quite a while, which was quite a change, but a nice one gave me a good good base for how the rest of the world works and operates.

Anne Laffin: Have done a flip flop between financial services and market research for quite a bit, and then landed at a FinTech startup. And it was there that I realized I love the startup environment. I love the startup world. And decided to make my own company, start my own company in the middle of the pandemic.

Anne Laffin: Why not? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Again, there’s, there’s nothing else going on. So starting a business sounded great. And now I am a marketing consultant for early stage companies. So that’s what I do.

Erin Marcus: Love it, love it, love it. What, I mean, I know my answer. What is it that you love about the early stage businesses?

Anne Laffin: Two things. One is this idea, the vision that the founder brings that this idea, I, it sounds hokey. I realize the words I’m going to say are going to sound hokey, but it’s this idea of like dream, a little bit of magic, fairy dust of like bringing something to life. That’s really fun and exciting, which with the next piece of it, which is the fast pace.

Anne Laffin: environment, the high highs, the low lows, the quick wins, all that is really, really fun and appealing. I love it.

Erin Marcus: And I think you have to have that, at least partially, if you can take resilience and turn it into something you actually enjoy, you’re ahead of the game. It’s that resilience or lack thereof that just, that’s a make or break.

Erin Marcus: You

Anne Laffin: have got to be able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going, because, I mean, man, there are some days that are not easy, and there’s a lot of days that are not easy, and that you’re tired and confused. And a part of this is me speaking as a business owner, but it’s also me watching founders work, where I, I can see the exhaustion on their face some days, but they really believe in what they’re doing and they keep going.

Erin Marcus: It’s so true. One of the things, and it had to do, it often has to do around marketing, interesting enough. I find myself saying, cause I talked to a good 10, 20 business owners a week. And they tell me what they have going on. And we’re talking about how they can improve their business. And one of the things that I, first I give them the disclaimer that I’m very direct.

Erin Marcus: Like, don’t, right, put your safety bubble on. I’m very direct. Too many times, small business owners, especially when they’re newer, and they’re just like, oh, I did this and it didn’t work, and I did this and it didn’t work, and I did this and it didn’t work, and what I’ll say to them is, well, did you try, or did you just start?

Erin Marcus: And most of the time, they really just started.

Anne Laffin: I agree. And there was no plan. You know, like, we didn’t measure anything, there wasn’t, I was just kind of, I call it, right, I

Erin Marcus: call it random acts of marketing. Yes, 100%. To just go out

Anne Laffin: into the world and do random acts of marketing. Yep, so great. Spaghetti marketing, where you’re just throwing it at the wall, you know, like, it’s not super effective.

Erin Marcus: So, I have to tell you, because it just makes me laugh. I grew up in Chicago and we have this amazing, amazing Museum of Science and Industry here and big place. I mean, been going there my whole life. And when you say market research, my immediate emotion is nostalgia because there was this area at the museum.

Erin Marcus: And it was right next to the baby chick display. And I know as an adult these things didn’t go together, it was just a coincidence, but in my child, you know, emotional memory, it went together. But there was a baby chick display with the incubator and the eggs. Next to it was a market research thing. And even as kids, if you were there at the right time, they would bring you into the room and do market research with you.

Erin Marcus: So my childhood emotion is got market research attached to baby chicks.

Anne Laffin: Love it. That is amazing.

Erin Marcus: So I have a pretty nostalgic Feeling when anybody says market research. So because I know that’s not what that means, what do you take from that experience? Like, first of all, give us your definition of market research.

Erin Marcus: And then how does a small business owner, a new business owner, what can they learn from those entities that like, one of the things I see is we do our research in the, in the And there’s a beauty to it, but there’s also a horror story to

it.

Erin Marcus: Like, what did you learn from your market research days besides baby chicks?

Anne Laffin: Yes.

Yeah.

Erin Marcus: There

Anne Laffin: wasn’t a whole lot of baby chicks. That would have been amazing. I would have loved it. I mean, Broad answer, right? Market research, I think, is determining behavior, preference getting data on something consumer related. So a little more detail on that, right? It could be the wording in an ad you see on TV or in a magazine.

Anne Laffin: It could be the way a package looks, right? Your shampoo or your soap. It could be how aware people are of a brand. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can do read. That’s kind of formal research, but for something like a small business or a startup market, research could simply be calling or emailing.

Anne Laffin: Your current customers and I don’t keep them. I

Erin Marcus: have so many people go, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Well, have you asked anybody and they look at me like, this is the most shocking and obvious answer I could have given them.

Anne Laffin: Yep. I don’t know why that’s still new news. Maybe because it’s scary.

Anne Laffin: To actually get the answer. I don’t know what the actual resistance is. I think

Erin Marcus: you’re, I think there is some truth to that because I think so many small business owners have a vision and they’re so in love with their vision that the last thing they want to hear is that nobody wants to buy their vision.

Anne Laffin: Yes. And there you go. That’s why so many startups fail is because there actually wasn’t a need to begin with the thing that they want to make. And it goes back to the idea of the magic, the fairy dust. Well, listen, if there’s nothing to support the magic and fairy dust, it just goes away and it’s not magical and nobody cares.

Anne Laffin: So even if you reach out to your consumers or your friends or someone you think might be a consumer to ask them, would you use this? How would you use it? Why would you not use it? Like get some of that basic information you can then. Hibbit, be flexible. See if you can make something out of what you have.

Anne Laffin: It’s really, it’s key to know, right? Otherwise, those assumptions can really come back to hurt you.

Erin Marcus: Right. We all have good, good instincts, but our feelings will lie to us. Yep. But the beauty of the small business and the startup is that ability for the, the very, very quick flexibility. Yes,

Anne Laffin: 100%. It really at you, you can and you have to be flexible.

Anne Laffin: I mean, that is 100 percent part of the skill set there. You know, larger companies you and I were talking things. The pace is much slower. There’s so many levels of approvals and and Things that have to happen for projects to move forward. That really isn’t the case in a startup or a small business.

Anne Laffin: Maybe it’s a handful of people. Everybody could come to consensus in potentially 10 minutes in the room that you’re all working. And then you move forward. So it’s, it’s different.

Erin Marcus: So how do you advise people? Because the other flip side of this, one of the things that I talk a lot about is let’s put bumpers in the gutters, right?

Erin Marcus: So we don’t fall off the cliff on either end. So we need market research so that we vet our offer in some way. But the flip side of that is I watch people giving up too soon and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right? Humans think very much with all or nothing, especially when it comes to marketing.

Erin Marcus: I met a great guy who’s good at what he does and I love his energy. And I was with him in Salt Lake City last week, but he mentioned three different tactics, two or three different tactics that he tried that didn’t work. And so he stopped. And I’d like, my whole thing is measure and tweak, measure and tweak.

Erin Marcus: Marketing is testing. That’s all it is. Okay. So how do you help somebody not fall off the all or nothing cliff?

Anne Laffin: I think I, I lean heavily on having some kind of plan. I remember when I first started, I would make these large, largish marketing plans, right? For at least six months. And I quickly realized, like, that’s just not going to work in a startup.

Anne Laffin: They may not be there in six months.

Erin Marcus: God only knows. God. Yep. So.

Anne Laffin: So fast and forever at the same time. Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t, like, it doesn’t mean you should not have a plan at all.

Erin Marcus: I agree.

Anne Laffin: So at least if you’re planning out, in this example, we have, you know, three different tactics or that he used, well, did we have an objective?

Anne Laffin: Did we know who we were trying to reach? You know, like what did we measure? And then to your point, really like was it truly a failure? Is it worth going back and testing? Like, how long did we let it run? There are questions you need to ask.

Erin Marcus: Agreed

Anne Laffin: to really determine like, was this truly a bus or did we just not give it enough time?

Anne Laffin: You know, like one week you can’t be like, well this didn’t work. I didn’t get any leads in one week. Well, of course you didn’t arrive, right? No,

Erin Marcus: you’re exactly right. And I think this is one of the. I think it’s a challenge for small business owners who are bootstrapping it. They’re, I don’t want to say desperate in a bad way, but like their life depends on almost every sale.

Erin Marcus: And if things don’t happen fast, they don’t happen at all.

Anne Laffin: I get a sense sometimes too, like there’s a lot of emotion wrapped up in that. And when people are, you know, like it’s their life savings poured into the business. They panic and like, I, I can even, I feel this right now. It’s going to sound hokey too.

Anne Laffin: The tightness in my chest of like, Oh my God, I’ve got to sell something. I’m so nervous. Like, we’re going to try this stuff. This didn’t work. I’m going to try this. Like it’s frenetic. This panic. And so I think that’s actually where a consultant, someone removed from the business can really come in handy because they are not emotional about it.

Anne Laffin: They’re going to stop that. Like hard stop on that frenetic energy to be like, Hey, Let’s look at what’s actually happening.

Erin Marcus: We’re all separate, as I think. Let’s separate the story from what is actually happening. Let’s not worry about what you’re making it mean.

Erin Marcus: And because I just did this in my business, what, what can we salvage? Okay, we didn’t get what we wanted. We tried this thing and we didn’t get what we wanted, but what did we get and how can we use it? And Sometimes it’s so much fun because I literally, overnight, feels like overnight, it was probably about 30 days.

Erin Marcus: Dropped about 80 percent of what, of my marketing plan. I’m like, you know what, we’re doing all this work. It’s not producing the results. Let’s take the 20 percent of the plan that’s working. Let’s pour more energy and intention into that. And just like, like literally, could you imagine how freeing it is to give up 20 percent of the energy it takes to still get the results.

Anne Laffin: Sounds amazing. It sounds really amazing. Because I think, you know, one of the disadvantages of having a small company is that you just, you don’t have resources. You don’t likely have cash. You don’t usually have human capital either. And so if you have too many things running at once, They’re likely not being done well, hard to track them, and you just, like, again, you just don’t have the resources to make, make them happen well.

Anne Laffin: So that idea of, what can we cut? What’s really not helpful? Get rid of them.

Erin Marcus: And

things

Erin Marcus: get complicated all by themselves. Oh my god. Like, how come, you know, you mentioned you’re an avid runner. Like, how come the things we want in our lives don’t happen by accident? You don’t get healthy by accident, you get couch potato by accident.

Erin Marcus: Like, if you don’t do things with intention, You get the version of it you don’t want. And marketing, I think, is one of those things. It gets very complex, very quickly, because most people, when they, going back to what you’re saying about the, you know, the clinchy energy around needing the sale, the instinct is seldom to do less.

Right?

Anne Laffin: That’s a great point. It is. It’s like, how many more things can we add on to the plate? How can we make this harder rather than smarter? You’re right, it is. And, and I get that, like, to not be preachy here, it’s like, I, even for myself, I get like, oh, well, I must, must do more,

Erin Marcus: like, I have to stop myself.

Erin Marcus: Well, and that’s why I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who can be that litmus test for you, because I got sucked, I mean, I know this, I do this for my clients. I had it happen to me and my, you know, my COO, very, she’s much less direct than I am, very pleasantly said, can I just reflect back to you for a second when I’m hearing you

say,

Erin Marcus: which, which was her very nice, pleasant preface for saying what the hell, right?

Erin Marcus: What are you even doing? What are you doing?

What are you even doing?

Erin Marcus: So you’re a couple years in now, you’re a few years now. What let’s shorten some people’s learning curves. Let’s say if you just don’t do that, you’ll be ahead of the game. What, what has not worked for you and your experience?

Anne Laffin: Avoidance of the things I don’t like. We were talking about this earlier.

Erin Marcus: I have no problem avoiding the things I don’t like. I just hire other people to do

that.

Anne Laffin: So I, this is where I find a different way. I’m a little bit more of like an ostrich where I kind of bury my head in the sand and like pretend it’s not happening.

Anne Laffin: And I found that’s not, everyone listen up. That’s not the way to do things. Don’t run your business that way. But to your

Erin Marcus: point, there’s so much that does need your attention. That’s not a hard place to find yourself in. There’s a lot of overwhelm

Anne Laffin: and you know, there’s a lot of things I’m really good at.

Anne Laffin: We were talking about like, and I like doing those things. And there’s a lot of things that I get overwhelmed with and I don’t like doing. And when I’ve got to, and I want to do great work for my clients, some of the business stuff, the admin stuff. Gets pushed to the side, but Hey, guess what? I still have to run my business.

Anne Laffin: And as silly as that might sound, kind of doing this for the first time, it really has been, I’ve had a quite a learning curve. And I’m now at this point where I’m like, if I really want to make this work, I have to really think about this as a business. Run it as a business, know my numbers, the financials, like that to me, you’ve got to know.

Anne Laffin: And I think that’s the same for startups too, because I don’t think they all, I don’t think they all know.

Erin Marcus: I did my whole live show this morning on know your numbers and how do you actually use your numbers. Not just track them in arrears, because who cares? Yep. But what do you do with that information?

Anne Laffin: I’m, I’m learning. I’m learning the hard way. I am embarrassed to say that it’s not. It has been hard but I’m learning all the same.

Erin Marcus: I think one of the things that served me well, I don’t know where it came from, is the fact that I really don’t have a big problem telling somebody I have no idea about X.

Erin Marcus: Like, I have no hesitation around things that I’m bad at. Mm hmm. My boyfriend teases me all the time his thing to say to me, how would you even if I wasn’t here? How would you even be alive? Because I do zero cooking,

right?

Erin Marcus: It’s like, how did you keep yourself alive until we actually got together? And I just, for whatever reason, when I was in corporate, I’d be like, What’s that acronym?

Erin Marcus: What are you even talking about? Or when I got my MBA, I remember they walked us through this financial calculation and I followed and I’m like, yeah, got the answer. What are we even talking about? And it served me well,

Erin Marcus: because I think there’s this challenge for And it might just be more women, and I totally could see why. You gotta know everything, or you think someone’s gonna think you know nothing. Do I lose my credibility? I, I hear that. That goes, if you stick with it, that goes away.

Erin Marcus: One of the beauties of, the beautiful things about owning what I don’t know how to do and what I’m not good at is it frees me up to own what I’m really good at.

Erin Marcus: So, hang in there.

You

Erin Marcus: got it. I’m hanging in. I am very resilient. That’s great. That’ll go away. You’ll find a different way. Flip it. What are you most, what are you most proud of? What are you like?

Anne Laffin: I think what I’m most proud of at this point is the perspective that I’m able to bring to my clients. Cause I’ve worked in a lot of different industries with a lot of different clients at various stages and.

Anne Laffin: I kind of have this overarching view that I bring to all my clients. Obviously I’m not talking about proprietary information being shared. It’s like, Hey, here’s where I see you’re at and the challenges that I’ve seen. You need to get a handle on X, Y, Z, and here’s how. And that’s a beautiful thing that can be very valuable to a startup that’s struggling, but doesn’t know what the next step is.

Anne Laffin: I’ve likely seen it, you know,

Erin Marcus: I love that. Like it’s, it’s. You knew you knew what you knew, but now you really know. Right? Yes.

Anne Laffin: Because you see these themes over and over again with, you know, when the team is this big, when the team is this big, when, like, there’s just these things that keep happening. And I, I didn’t, again, I didn’t kind of know I knew that until I’m like, Oh, well, I’ve seen this happen before.

Anne Laffin: Here’s what’s going to happen next. And it, you know, it’s similar.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what’s next in your business? What do you have coming up?

Anne Laffin: Well I have been working on diversifying my offering and one of the things I love and have a lot of experience in is actually email marketing. And so I’m coming out with an email marketing course.

Anne Laffin: It is for very early stage founders that maybe don’t have any marketing support and they’re doing all their email marketing themselves. Or Maybe have a junior marketer that’s in there. So that’s what I’ve been working on. Obviously, we’re working with my clients, but

Erin Marcus: it’s fun. I do find as I’m out in the entrepreneur world more and more and more, it is exciting to give back.

Erin Marcus: in make accessible information in some way to the people who aren’t really yet ready and are able to get their own strategies if it were. Totally. Absolutely. So much fun. So if people want to continue this conversation with you so you can help them understand how to avoid the bathwater, use what works.

Erin Marcus: Let go of what doesn’t, what is the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Anne Laffin: They can find me at FinMarketingM. com and I would love to chat with them.

Erin Marcus: Awesome. FinMarketingM. com. Awesome. Thank you so much for your conversation today, your time, your energy, your effort. Absolutely love it.

Anne Laffin: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.