How do you gain confidence in marketing with Sue Painter – ep 57

Mostafa Hosseini  0:02 

And we’re live. Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. We are here with episode 57 of the daily conference for entrepreneurs. I’m here at SU painter’s welcome, Sue.

Sue Painter  0:16 

Hi, thank you for having me.

Mostafa Hosseini  0:18 

Great to have you. So at daily conference for entrepreneurs we are our aim and model is to share tips, strategies and actionable advice that you could use to boost your confidence when it comes to running your business or different areas of business on a daily basis.

Today, as well, it’s probably the best topic to talk about, which is what makes a confident marketer, which is right along what we do and what we talk about. So, let me introduce Sue, and then we’re going to dive right into it. Sue Painter is known for two things her marketing brilliance and her ability to brainstorm next steps for her clients that help them quickly build their reach.

Sue has been working with clients internationally since 2006, and a specializes in online and small local businesses. And long, long, lifelong learner Sue has an is an avid traveler starting her adventures, while in high school. As an exchange student in Colombia, she traveled to all seven continents in over 80 countries.

Wow, that’s a lot. Then her time spent in other cultures often sparks new ideas to her own business. And for her clients. She is married to her college sweetheart, Bill painter and lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Welcome, Sue.

Sue Painter  1:45 

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here today. This is one of my favorite topics, confidence and marketing, hence the name of my business, the confident marketer.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:55 

Absolutely. So like it couldn’t be a better match. And I look, I really look forward to this conversation here. How’s your day going? So far?

Sue Painter  2:04 

It’s going great, busy, but that’s okay. busy is good.

Mostafa Hosseini  2:07 

Absolutely. And you’re in Florida, right?

Sue Painter  2:09 

Correct. I’m in the Sarasota area on the Gulf Coast.

Mostafa Hosseini  2:12 

Is it pretty hot down there right now?

Sue Painter  2:15 

No, people think it’s hot here. But in the summertime, the highest we ever gets about 92? Because we always have a sea breeze going whereas in Tennessee today, it’s over 100 Oh,

Mostafa Hosseini  2:29 

good. I’m so today talking about? We’re talking about what makes a confident marketer? So of Sir, tell us about your business, your story, what is your story? And how did you get into what you’re doing now?

Sue Painter  2:45 

Okay, I work in the corporate world and in the research world for a long time for big corporations and really felt like I wanted to have more of a personal impact rather than being part of a huge organization.

So I dropped out after a period of time and actually I went off and went to massage therapy school and became a massage therapist and marketed that business very successfully for 14 years. I learned marketing because I used to have to go sell multimillion dollar proposals to organizations up in the DC area.

So after it had the massage therapy business for about six months, I personally was already booked a year ahead of time, and nobody wants to wait that long for a massage right so I started hiring staff and built up a big clinic and really realize how important it is to have rain clarity in your niche. Pardon me for being hoarse to pollen in the air today is getting to me a little bit.

And so then more and more people ask me how did them build my business so rapidly and I just started doing more consulting and eventually sell the massage therapy practice and went back into marketing which is what I had been doing in the corporate world. I guess once a marketer always a marketer

Mostafa Hosseini  4:04 

love it. So you got you were in a massage therapy business and then and then what happened? So you start doing marketing your business. So I’m missing the link between massage therapy and million dollar proposals as usually people that I talk to are not talking about seven figure proposals.

Sue Painter  4:23 

I was no I went in my corporate job I had to go sale million dollar proposals. So I got very adept at marketing and bringing in a business to my organization which I had to do to keep my I had 72 people who worked for me and I had to go you know, I had to go bring home that money every year to keep them employed.

Mostafa Hosseini  4:45 

Got it but so alright. So with the How about the so what was the next step? So you right and then you got into the massage therapy business. Right and then you learned or develop and did more marketing and then what happened?

Sue Painter  5:01 

Well, what happened is that locally, other businesses, other small business owners, where I lived at that time, they started wanting me to come to lunch and come to dinner, come to coffee. And they wanted to pick my brains about How had I built the business so rapidly and large.

And after about a year or two of doing an awful lot of breakfast, lunch and dinners with people picking my brain for free, I realized that I could sell that. And so I went ahead and established the confident marketer, I built that up and started working with people all over the place, and eventually just sold the massage clinic because this was better, really, more in line with what who I am and what my knowledge base is, the massage therapy was, although I still have a soft spot in my heart for that.

Mostafa Hosseini  5:51 

Love it. So what do you do these days? And who do you hear?

Sue Painter  5:56 

Mostly, I work with online business owners, usually small solo professionals who have hung based online businesses. But I also do work with local businesses who don’t understand how to harness the Internet to bring clients in the door. So my whole focus is, is your brain clear? Do you know who you serve? How do you market to those people specifically? And not waste your time and money marketing to people who are not your ideal customers?

Mostafa Hosseini  6:25 

All right, all right. I like the sound of that for sure. What is your definition of a confident marketer? How do you define a confident marketer?

Sue Painter  6:42 

To me, a confident marketer is somebody who is able to represent who and what their business is, without hesitation without feeling shy, without dreading the fact that they need to do marketing. Who knows the tools and knows exactly what they need to do to keep the visibility of their business up, and to continue to engage customers.

And I started with that name, because when I started working, helping solo professionals, many of whom were people like nutritionist, massage therapist, dentist, coaches, psychologist, those kinds of people, they were really, really good at what they did. They had every credential in the world, but nobody had ever taught them about how to market their business.

So they had this idea that they were going to graduate hang their shingle out on the road, and people were just going to flock to them. And of course, you and I know that doesn’t happen in real life, right? You got to be able to learn how to build your brand visibility and talk succinctly about what you offer. How is it that you’re different from every other psychologist up and down the road? How is it that your massage therapy business is different from every other massage therapist? How are you different from the massage therapist, I were here today spa.

So I realized that people just didn’t have any clue about thinking of themselves as the CEO of their business, and the leader of their business, instead, they still thought of themselves as a practitioner. And you can love your practice all day long. I really loved massage, and I was good at it.

But that doesn’t create customers coming in your door, you also have to think of yourself as a business owner. So that confident marketer mindset is really thinking of yourself as a business owner, as someone who confidently knows how to represent what it is that is the magic that you do.

Mostafa Hosseini  8:43 

Love it. Love it. Did you do you have a it confidence story where maybe at some point, you were not as confident and you have to like figure it out.

Sue Painter  8:58 

Um, nothing that just comes to the very top of my mind. I mean, I guess I’ve always thought that pretty much everything is you can figure it out.

And I also learned from a mentor early on that all businesses is an experiment, everything you do is an experiment in your business is not there is no failure. There’s only feedback, you try something, you try it maybe two different ways or three different ways it doesn’t work.

And therefore, that gives you feedback that is not going to work for your business or you may try something else and it works great. And so you know, then that that’s a good model for you. And you can rinse and repeat it. So to me it is just really learning that there’s people are afraid of failure. Don’t be afraid of failure. Failure is how you learn.

It’s just feedback. It’s not failure. So what if you make a mistake? You’re the owner of your business and actually if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not risking enough in your business. You’re not trying to leverage it enough. Safety has no place in the business world?

Mostafa Hosseini  10:02 

Absolutely. Okay. Um, how did you end up with the with the name confident marketer? Like, what’s the story behind that?

Sue Painter  10:12 

There is a story behind that actually. At first, I was just like Sue Painter, the marketing consultant, and you know, people’s eyes glaze over. But I was asked to come make a speech one day at a ladies luncheon. And I went, and they were, I think, 22 women around this table.

And they were, I was supposed to be introduced. And, of course, this very unconfident president of this organization, didn’t want to stand up and introduce me, even though I’ve given her a bio. So she stood up and said, I’m just gonna let Sue Painter introduce herself. And I thought, Okay.

And I thought in that moment, just in that moment, I thought, you know, I need to switch around what I’m saying. Because just saying, I’m Sue Painter, and I’m a business consultant that’s kind of makes people’s eyes glaze over, it doesn’t call to the customer.

So in that moment, I said, Well, what I do is I turn those of you around this table, who are afraid to market your business into confident marketers, and the name of my business is the confident marketer. I changed it right then. And by the end of that luncheon, 18 of those 22 women were my clients. And that’s how my business started.

Mostafa Hosseini  11:27 

Verina 18 out of 2020 to

Sue Painter  11:31 

18 out of 22. high conversion, is that no, that’s, yeah, that’s what happens when you are confident about what you offer. And when you do something that both attracts and repels. The attraction statement was if you need competence, I’m your gal.

The repelling statement was if you’re confident already, you don’t need me. And a good marketing statement both attracts and repels. So sorry for the water. But I’m trying to say my boy.

Mostafa Hosseini  12:00 

Absolutely. No, I drink coffee when I’m talking as well myself. So I want I want to come back to this attract and repel statement that you just made. And I would love to. Well, while we’re at it, let’s talk about it. Why should a marketing statement attract and repel people? What’s the strategy behind it?

Sue Painter  12:20 

Well, think about it, you’re in business and you don’t want to waste your time. You don’t want tire kickers, you want people who are going to work with you. So every statement that you make about your business, should really try to do something to draw the right people to you and to hold back the people who are not going to be your best customers because my belief is we do our best work when we have our best customers. Nice.

So for instance, I own a second, I own a second business that’s a travel agency owned a small travel agency. I sail upscale luxury travel, and I don’t want the tire kickers who want the $230 cruise. So my marketing statements need to attract people who want harsher travel. And it needs to repel those people who are driven by price.

I don’t sell travel to people who buy on price. I sell people I sell travel to people who want my knowledge and my expertise and telling them about where it is that they are going because chances are I’ve been there.

Mostafa Hosseini  13:27 

Love it. So what would be your example of that statement?

Sue Painter  13:35 

I sail, I would maybe say something like I said, first of all, I call it leisure travel, not vacation, travel, leisure travel, because leisure is a little bit more upscale than just vacation travel.

So I might say I sell leisure travel to families, couples and solo travelers who want the best experience in that destination they’re going to that doesn’t that doesn’t imply low end.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:09 

Got it? Okay. So you would you would intentionally design your statements that would attract the people that are focused more on quality and they’re willing to spend money. And at the same time, you would be repelling the people that are price shopping.

Sue Painter  14:28 

Right? You could do it a bunch of other ways. If you could, if you were, you know, I could say I specialize in travel that’s two weeks or longer and is outside of the USA. That’s going to imply that it’s an expensive trip, especially now. It’s going up daily.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:45 

Okay, all right. And so how would you? Do we need to sit down and create a list of statements or things that would imply your message am I getting this right?

Sue Painter  14:59 

What Well, I guess if you’re looking if you have a business and you’re looking at your who into what statement, you know your statement about who you are what you do, then I would certainly have on a list, who is it? That is your ideal customer? Who do you most light up when you work with? And who do you kind of dread to see coming? Right?

Yeah. So you want to aim your statements to attract more of those people who you light up when you see them ringing your phone, or when you see them sending you an email, you know, Allied up if somebody texts me and says, you know, I’ve decided that I want to do a bucket list trip and I want to go to Antarctica, and I know, Sue that you went to an article a couple years ago. Can you help me with this trip?

I don’t line up if somebody says, tax me and says, I live in Florida, and I want to go to Nassau for the weekend. Can you find me the cheapest trip possible? I don’t want to waste my time on there.

Mostafa Hosseini  15:53 

Yeah. Okay. So how do you respond to a request like that?

Sue Painter  15:59 

You always very politely. And I mean, like I get questions all the time, can you book in domestic airline ticket for me, and I won’t do that no, no good travel agent will bother to do that. First of all, you don’t make a damn. And second of all, in all honesty, you need to control your own ticket. Because if something happens that you miss a connection, you don’t want to have to call me to fix it, you want to be able to fix it in the moment.

So it’s not in your best interest. So I usually say something, you know, if you’re looking for a little quick trip from Fort Lauderdale over to NASA for the weekend, you don’t need me just go over on, you know, go directly to the cruise line or directly to the hotel and just book it directly. It’ll be the cheapest and the quickest for you.

Mostafa Hosseini  16:42 

You got it. Alright, so being polite, and I guess being direct and telling direct me to where they need to go. To get the best. Yeah, what they’re looking for love. So let’s talk about the three things that give entrepreneurs confidence in marketing their business,

Sue Painter  16:59 

I think we need three things. The first is we need the mindset of We are the CEOs of our business. That’s why I haven’t actually I have a membership group for women entrepreneurs called the CEO circle. And it is really that we are the leaders of our business, male or female were the leaders of our business. So that’s one thing. The second thing is we have to have brand clarity. And by that I mean really specific niche brand clarity.

Part of the mindset going back to the first thing is realizing that while we may be very expert at what we do, you’re expert at what you do, I’m expert at what I do, I’m very expert in the world of travel. Still, nevertheless, I have to have the clarity of Who do I want to work for just like you have to have the clarity of Who do you most want to hire you, right?

 So mindset, brand, clarity, or niche. And then the tools. Most people focus on the tools, but they don’t ever get the mindset and the brand clarity, right? And then the tools don’t work for them. And then I get calls like, well, I’ve spent $10,000 In two years trying to build up an Instagram following and I’m not getting anywhere and can you take a look. And you know, their Instagram posts are all over the place. You can’t tell from their profile what it is they actually do.

So they don’t have brand clarity. They just have spent a lot of money on a tool. If you’re good enough, and you’re clear enough, you don’t need to spend money on a lot of tools. You don’t have to have that keep your business simple and tight.

 And you’ll go faster few you’ll go faster and you’ll make more money. I mean, the purpose of a business is to make money so we may as well quit pretending like it’s not if you’re not hungry and you don’t need the money you want focus down. It’s a hobby for you.

Mostafa Hosseini  18:51 

You got so the three things were mindset, tools and Brent clarity, did I get my

Sue Painter  18:57 

brand clarity, mindset First, bring clarity and niche second and proper tools. Alright,

Mostafa Hosseini  19:04 

could you give us a couple of tips on how to be a how to deal with the mindset piece because I know a lot of people have the you know, the personal confidence thing.

Some people don’t like to be salesy and some people, you know, there’s different things. What are a couple of tips that people could do or take today to help them become more confident starting with their mindset?

Sue Painter  19:35 

Well, some of the things we’ve talked about already and you do have to think of yourself as the leader for your business. Yep, no, no one is going to care about what happens to your business more than you do.

So you have to accept the fact that you can’t I mean, I have a lot of people who say, Oh, I hate to market and I just want to hire it done for me and I’m like, nobody’s gonna care. About your sales and your bottom line unless they’re a partner in your business.

 So if you really want to direct your marketing, make them a partner in Split 5050, then they’ll be hungry. And you’ll get and you’ll have success. But don’t expect to find somebody for 10 bucks an hour who’s going to go market you to a million dollars, that’s not going to happen. So you have to understand that mindset, how does business work?

And why are you in it? And it can you turn around and see yourself not only as a skilled practitioner, of whatever it is you are, but also as the leader and the owner of your business. A little trick is to test yourself, when you go over here to some networking event or you meet somebody in zoom rooms, like we’ve all been doing for the past year and a half. When somebody says, Well, hi, you know, introduce yourself. Try instead of saying, I’m a dentist, or I’m an online marketer.

Say, I’m a business owner, put your stake in the ground as a business owner. I’m a business owner, and I help people plan, Bucket List memorable trips, I’m a business owner, I help online entrepreneurs figure out exactly who they serve, and exactly where to market so that they have more clients coming in the door. Like I’m a business owner, start with that.

See if it feels uncomfortable for you to see yourself as a business owner? If it does, you know, you’ve got some work to do up here on the head, right.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:30 

Love it. Love it really good tips.

So what about the tool part? How, what are some tips for people to become more confident with tools? Because I know there is. F you?

Sue Painter  22:00 

Mustapha, you’re freezing up on me. Say that again?

Mostafa Hosseini  22:08 

You? Can you still hear me?

Sue Painter  22:10 

Yeah, I can hear you. But you froze up for just a minute. So I didn’t hear your question. Sorry.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:14 

I’m sorry. I think my internet froze up for a sec. I think one, how do I know there are like a million tools out there? And what do we need to do to become more confident with the tools?

Because the mere act of selecting the right tool, I think, looking at the menu reduces you know, people’s confidence, like Oh, forget it, how which 1am? I going to supposed to, you know, which 1am I supposed to work with?

Sue Painter  22:41 

Right? Well, when you have, you know, when you’ve worked on brand clarity, and you know exactly who you’re going for and exactly what it is you’re going to offer me, then, that helps you select your tools. So if you’re an online business, then you know, you’re gonna have to have email deliverability. And that email deliverability is going to have to be good.

So you’re going to have to pick an autoresponder that has a really good deliverability rate and does what you want it to do, but isn’t too complicated. I have seen 1000s of business owners pay for tools that were robust, and they never use 10% of what that tool did.

And it was a total waste of money. And I’ve wasted money like that before, too. So you want to pick something that will allow you to grow. But not something that’s something that a big business buys. So you need to keep it simple. What do you need?

Do you need a website? Probably yes. Do you need an email system? I believe your two biggest tools online are your website and your email, you’re going to make more money off your email marketing than you’re ever going to make off of social media marketing, unless you’re maybe a business to consumer and you’ve got so much following. You’re an influencer.

That’s the big exception to that. And that’s harder and harder to get. So you need to think about what are the simplest tools, the simplest systems and also start systematizing the use of your tools. If you’re a blogger, and you’re going to do an article on your blog once a week, or whatever your deal is, make sure you have a checklist.

Every single one of my articles need to have these seven things in them. I’m going to look at SEO, I’m going to make sure I have a graphic that’s you know, I can go put over here on social. I’m going to make sure there’s a click to tweet and go to make sure there’s social share buttons, I’m going to make sure that I have at least three good references or whatever your deal is make your checklist and check it off.

So tools keep simple if you systematize the use of your tools and then that will tell you what do you need the tool to do? I believe I don’t I don’t believe in trying to you can’t build a million dollar business using free tools.

You have to invest in your business, but they don’t have to be the highest and tools either

Mostafa Hosseini  25:01 

Absolutely, I think you have to keep an eye. So you don’t have too many tools to get confused with the list of. Because there’s no end to.

Sue Painter  25:12 

There’s no and they change all the time. It’s a lot harder than when I first started, when I first started, there was one shopping cart, and you know, God and everybody use one shopping cart. Now there’s probably 20 shopping carts.

Exactly, exactly. And you have to kind of, you know, you kind of have to take it. In not go. I mean, you I also I teach a workshop twice a year about decluttering your business. And part of it is looking at the tools. And always, always people can cut their operating costs about 25, or 30%. Because they realize they have five different ways to make a video and they only need one, and they can quit paying for the other four.

They buy think they’re going to try it out. They don’t have time to try it out. They don’t put it on your calendar to try it out. And it just sits there. I’ve done the same thing. We’re all guilty of that.

Mostafa Hosseini  26:01 

Absolutely. I’ve been guilty of that, too, where my credit card is getting charged every month for something that I haven’t used for a year or two or three. And then. And it’s interesting when people come to think of whatever I want to discontinue it, they have to think about it really hard. And I’m like, Dude, you haven’t used it for like two years? What are you worried about?

Sue Painter  26:24 

Exactly? Noise back? If it’s that big of a deal? Yeah. So see, they need my declutter workshop. If you have things that you’re you’ve paid for a year, and you haven’t used that. I mean, literally people don’t have a list of it. And it used to be that I didn’t have a list of it either.

But you know, I teach people you have a list, you put it on your calendar, three months before it comes? Do you assess?

 Have you been using it and you send the cancellation notice right now, then, because all of them have this automatic renewal and they don’t make it easy for you to cancel. It takes three months to get their attention sometimes. Exactly.

Mostafa Hosseini  26:59 

Yeah. I like that. Right before it’s due to cancellation. Otherwise, you’re gonna have to chase them and your money to try to get your money back.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Love it. And then the last piece was, so it was mindset tools and brand clarity. Can you give us a few couple of tips on the brand clarity? piece?

Sue Painter  27:24 

Yeah, sometimes people really have trouble niching down. And so I have a actually have a maximize your message. workshop that I do with Pete take people through it. And it starts with things like, you know, what do you really believe about your business?

What are you stand for in your business? What are you against in your business? Like in my business, I’m very much I’m very much against people wasting time and money, adventure tools they want us. So they can they can write down? What do they really stand for? Why do they have their business? What are they against? What are they standing against?

Whatever they feel like their clients or their customers will never get or never achieve? Unless they do x x x. And then usually that xx sticks is what you’re providing. So there’s a set of statements I take people through, and it really helps them become clear about what it is that they’re calling themselves or what it is that they have to offer. What problem does that solve?

Or what transformation does that support? And who really is the ideal? I mean, I can’t stand it, this happens and must have happened to me 1000 times in the past, I’ve been doing this for 18 years now. People will say my target market is women. No, it isn’t. Yes, it is every woman could benefit from what I have. Okay, is your target market women who refuse to pay?

No. It’s your talking. I mean, you can eventually it is, you know, women who have had breast cancer, who have survived for at least five years and who now want to be able to move their shoulders more freely. I mean, that’s fun that you have to get it. And when you ditch it, that’s a clarion call, those women will immediately say, I need that that’s me.

Or if I haven’t had that problem, they’ll still gloss over it, because that’s not them. Or they may say it’s not me, but I have a friend and I’m going to send them this link. So you want to be clear, like clear.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:27 

Absolutely. Because we

Sue Painter  29:28 

buy based on emotion. And we buy based on you know, most of us are what’s the word impulse buyers. So, you know, you have to mark it in that way.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:44 

So, what is the what is the way again

Sue Painter  29:49 

that you have to market very clearly with a very defined

Mostafa Hosseini  29:52 

niche. Exactly. All right, perfect. Yeah. I mean, in my experience when I was broad, like I serve women hyperbolic statement then there are like, what, 4 billion women around on the planet? Which one do you answer? Right?

Sue Painter  30:07 

Right? Do you sir women who don’t speak English? Do you serve women who don’t have a credit card? Like? I mean, come on, niche it down.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:14 

Exactly. And there’s that fear. What do you say about that fear about niching down, people really have a hard time. Like, even when you show them, here’s how your niche and this is the niche that you should stick to. They still have that fear of niching down. How do you how do you help people get over that?

Sue Painter  30:32 

We have to know a little bit about guns. My daily is, if you shoot somebody with buckshot, are you going to catch them? They’ll run away, they’ll be hurt with a runaway if you shoot somebody with a pistol. Are they going to stop? Yep, they are. That’s the difference between broad and niche.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:51 

Absolutely. All right. All right. Good. So tell us about your gift. The

Sue Painter  30:58 

Yeah. So I’m about you know, you, you might see that I’m all about focus, right. So I do have a like a one sheet focus six month business planner that people can download from my website. It’s free to you, it’s a gift to you. And you can go to competent marketer calm, slash, focused planner, confident, marketer.com/focused planner.

And you can leave your information there. And when you do that, you’ll get a copy of that focus planner, you can download it and then I have a little email that says, here’s how you can implement it. And that will help you get really focused about what do you want your business to do for the next six months.

 I am not a believer in oh, let’s plan for five years out the world is too rocky a place given the past year who that knew what they were going to do in six months specialist in two years, the six months we can get our brains around. And so that’s a good place to start.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:57 

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Focus and planning. But those are like you’re speaking my language. So we’re good. We’re gonna get along just fine.

Yeah, because without focus, like we’re all over the place without a plan. Like, how are you going to get to your goal? Obviously, you have to have a goal first.

Sue Painter  32:23 

Yeah, and planning, you know, focus. This also this one pager is not 15 pages. So it doesn’t overwhelm you. But it does help you get a lot of people I know who have online businesses who work from home like I do. I’ve been this is nothing new to me, the pandemic didn’t change me a bit. I’ve been working at home online for years now.

But a lot of people, they have their business on their head and not down on paper. And you cannot scale it you cannot delegate you cannot bring on a team member. You cannot actually keep yourself focused if you don’t have something that says okay, in the next six months, I said I wanted to do XYZ. And here’s how I my best guess as to how I’m going to do it. Remembering that all businesses and experiment you’re going to learn from everything you do.

Mostafa Hosseini  33:09 

Exactly. Good. Good. Now, let me ask you a couple of other questions. What are taught the top two or three books that have made a massive difference for you?

Sue Painter  33:26 

Um, I really used to love the guerilla marketing books by Jay Levinson, who’s long gone, but still nevertheless, that’s a classic. And I think everybody who is in marketing should start with that book. There’s another book I like, let’s see if I can find it.

This is a guy in England I met a couple years ago, Liam Thompson and he has this little book you can get on Amazon called the Clarity Project. It’s really about the some of the same things that I talked about with clarity. He and I think have the same mindset about that. But this is a good book. So those are the two that come to mind.

I also like Russell Bronson’s books, I’m not a Click Funnels user and never will be it’s too complicated system for what I need. But his books are really, really pointed, succinct and good. And you can learn a lot from his books.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:25 

Love it. Love it. So the guerilla marketing books, declarative project and books by Russell Brunson recommended good. Now, if you had an ad, digital banner ad that everyone on the web could see, what would your message be for people that see your ad?

Sue Painter  34:52 

Well, I don’t use banner ads, but if there was a banner ad I would probably say learn The quickest, most succinct, simplest way to build customers and income for your business.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:09 

Love it. Build customers that bring income for your business

Sue Painter  35:17 

that bring income to your business.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:23 

Love it that’s pretty self explanatory and simple. And to the point. Yeah, what is one piece of advice that made a massive change in your, in your business or life?

Sue Painter  35:34 

You know, when I was first starting, I hadn’t had the massage practice for a long time. And I was first starting competent marketer. And one of my massage clients was a dentist, who was an older guy had bad shoulders, and I kind of helped him keep going for a couple of extra years. And he would always, we would always end up talking business, he loved to think about how he had built his business over the years.

And he said to me, once, you know, you’re a hard worker, I can tell you’re a hard worker, you’ll go the distance, but you need to understand that the more time you take off, the more money you’ll make. And I was like, his name was David.

 And I was like, Oh, David, I can hardly see that, because I was actually in the beginning throes of, of the massage business, as well as a confident marketer. And I just couldn’t really think about that I thought, you know, I need to be hustling I need to be really building this business up. But I also love to travel. And I also know that I get my abroad or mindset, and I learned about people so much when I am in other places in the world. So I finally after about year two, I was getting pretty tired.

And I thought, Okay, well, I’m going to take three weeks off, and Bill and I went off somewhere I can’t remember where. And I came back. And sure enough, at the end of the years, my income had doubled.

And I realized that that time away helps us to get a new perspective and gets us out of the box. Big believer and thinking out of the box, you cannot go down the road in the same box you built. Now you’ve got to have a bigger box to get down the road.

So I think really understanding that you have to pull away from your business and you have to think outside the box and connect with other people, or travel or do whatever kind of soothes your soul and gives you risk.

Because if you’re in it for the long haul, and if you have that CEO mindset, you’re in it for the long haul. You need to sustain yourself mentally and physically and spiritually. You know, you can’t just work all the time.

Mostafa Hosseini  37:36 

Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Sue Painter  37:45 

Don’t spend so long working from the corporate world, you were an entrepreneur from the beginning, just go for it.

Mostafa Hosseini  37:53 

Working in the corporate world.

Sue Painter  37:56 

I went I wasted a lot of time in the corporate world. I learned a lot of good skills I did. But I wasted a lot of time you do not get rewarded for your work in the corporate world, or very rarely you do.

Mostafa Hosseini  38:10 

How do you get Can you can you expand on that a little bit and tell us for the better watching and listening on how they could understand when it’s time to maybe move on.

Sue Painter  38:26 

I think when I actually when I started as an entrepreneur, when I went off on my own, I said that I would sell the business the very day I got up and I dreaded what was on my calendar for the day. I don’t think we should spend our lives working in something we dread working for just the money working for just the insurance.

There are better ways to live. And you’ve got to be hungry, you’ve got to be curious. You’ve got to be willing to take a risk. But it ain’t worth it selling yourself. It’s not worth it.

Mostafa Hosseini  38:59 

Absolutely, that does great advice. So if you’re not happy getting up in the morning, if you’re not happy with the people you work with, if you’re not happy with the work that you do, if you’re not happy with your to do list or your surrounding chances are you need to move on.

Sue Painter  39:15 

Yeah, and I mean, you know, people use every excuse in the world not to move on I need the insurance. I need the income I’m free for my kids. I understand all that it’s valid, but you’re selling yourself number one and number two, then you start being the victim.

Well, they wouldn’t let me do this. Well, they wouldn’t do that. You got one life. You got one life. You don’t die regretting it.

Mostafa Hosseini  39:39 

Exactly. Exactly. Look. So gang if you’re watching or listening as you could see serious, really good at what she does. And when she talks you could tell she knows her stuff. She’s been at it for a long time.

So she’s not just a beginner claiming to be good at what she does, she has experienced that backs up her claims. And I know a few people that have tried her stuff and we’re happy. So go to confident marketer.com forward slash focused with an EDI at the end planner. And that’s the address to get her six month focus business planner as a gift where you can get.

So can you please tell us one more time what they get with that

Sue Painter  40:29 

is it’s a one page planner, just one page. So it’s not going to overwhelm or confuse you. But it is going to help you set your goals. Set how you want to spend your calendar, set how you want to spend your time for the next six months. What do you want your outcomes to be? What how what’s it going to, it’s going to give you like, Okay, now here’s how I think I can get there?

What are my marketing actions going to be? Or who do I need to meet? You know, it’s like everything on one sheet that you can fill it out? Well, it’s on one sheet, when you look at it on the website, when you download it, you’ll see that it’s four or five pages long.

And but it’s like simple and short. And you can either three hole punch it and keep it on your desk or you can print it out and put it up here on your whiteboard. Or you can just fill it online if you’re you know the online person and you don’t want to have any paper.

I’ll school I still have a whiteboard over here with goals and things, you know. Meet a visual person I have to see it.

Mostafa Hosseini  41:30 

Absolutely. Me too. I’ve got like what three whiteboards, and other board all I can write things down physically and see it. Yeah, I’m I use the phone as well.

But I like to I like to visualize my stuff. And I’m all about simplicity and everything one page. So I absolutely love what you’re sharing here with our audience. Simple. That’s a problem that a lot of us are experienced. And it’s complexity, right?

There’s too many things going on. If you could just simplify everything on one page that we could use and implement on a daily basis, life would become a lot easier results would become more achievable. And

Sue Painter  42:17 

yeah, I mean, one of my own mentors, I’ve had her for many, many years, like, every New Year’s Day we talk. And he’s like, I want to hear the one thing for this year, because he knows I’ve got ideas everywhere. One thing, so what’s the one thing for this year?

 Exactly. And that really helps you helps, you know, helps me focus down because like many entrepreneurs, I’m a hyphenate. I’m interested in a lot of things, I run a couple of businesses.

I’m curious, I’m always learning. All of us are like that, if we weren’t like that we wouldn’t be entrepreneurs. Right?

Mostafa Hosseini  42:52 

Absolutely. Absolutely. So this has been an absolute absolutely amazing conversation. Thank you for joining me, thank you for sharing your wisdom and your generous gift. Is there anything that you’d like to add? Before we wrap up?

Sue Painter  43:09 

I don’t think so I think we each have to find what we really love to do, and what we’re willing to put our heart into what we’re willing to learn more about. And, and my wish for everybody is that they have work that really, it’s joyful to them and they get it.

I mean, I can’t wait to get up in the morning and sit at my desk. And that’s my hope for everyone, because that’s what really builds your success.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:34 

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you for joining us gang for watching, you’re listening. And if you could subscribe to whichever channel you’re watching, whether it’s Apple podcasts, or Google or Spotify, or you’re on YouTube or LinkedIn, whichever channel please like, subscribe, and comment.

If you have any questions for me or Sue, put it in there. And we’ll get back to you. If there’s a friend that could benefit from the resource that Sue shared with us or if you want to tap into our expertise or you know someone that needs her help tag her in a comment on social media.

And so she can reach out to sue and get a hold of her. And that is it. Thank you for joining us.

Sue Painter  44:23 

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It’s been great.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:26 

Thank you very much. We’ll see you in our next episode. Take care gang and we will see you later. Bye now.

Sue Painter  44:33 

Thank you