3 Tips for Authentic Marketing with Maggie Giele
Branding with Friends | Episode 6
Featuring Expert Guest: Maggie Giele, business and marketing strategist
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Maggie Giele, Business and Marketing Specialist
Annie: Today I am so excited to introduce you to one of my friends in the business world. If you struggle with marketing your business authentically, doing it on strategy, and really just generally making money from all of your efforts. You are really going to love today's episode and my guest.
My guest today is the wonderful Maggie Giele. Maggie is an award-winning business and marketing strategist and certified coach. She helps fiercely driven business owners scale and grow with ease so they can do more of what they love.
She's also the founder of Bosses in Europe, an online community for entrepreneurs in Europe and hosts international events and retreats.
Maggie was born in Prague, grew up in the US and Singapore, and now lives in Amsterdam with her husband and her super cute Aussie Doodle pup Frodo. Maggie, welcome to Branding With Friends.
Maggie: Thank you so excited to be here!
Annie: Of course now we're today we're talking about one of the things that's in your wheelhouse, which is authentic marketing. It's one of the things I really admire about what you do. You do a great job of authentically marketing yourself, but also teaching others how to do it. Of course with business strategy in mind as well.
I know you're going to be sharing some top three tips about authentic marketing with our small business owners today. How they can smartly do it. We're going to share the first two as we go as you know, but make sure to watch to the end of the episode because Maggie will be sharing her third tip right at the end. So we will make sure you get all of those.
Maggie: And it's a good one.
Annie: It's a good one I'm sure. So as we're thinking about that first tip, that first thing we can do, why don't you tell us just a little bit more about your passion for specifically authentic marketing and sort of how you came to that in the first place?
Maggie: Sure. Well, my background is that I have a Masters of Science and Marketing Strategy. So it's something like I genuinely love marketing. A lot of people don't. A lot of my clients if they never have to touch or hear the word marketing ever again, they will likely die happy.
I actually genuinely like and enjoy marketing. But the thing is that when I started my business, I went straight from my masters into freelancing because we had just moved to a new country, with a new language. This was Germany. I speak very bad German, definitely not enough to like get a job in marketing in Germany. So I freelanced for a while. I learned how to code websites. I discovered this whole world of online I didn't know existed and I started getting marketing clients.
But here's the caveat. The first year and a half, I was in business, the clients I got were through little relationships I built. Through networking, through referrals, through people who knew me. Not through my own marketing. That kind of sucked. I'm a marketing specialist whose marketing is not working, what is wrong?
And I went into a downward spiral. I felt like a failure. I felt it was really frustrating. And I ended up in the hospital diagnosed with stress. Because I got so busy, so dizzy, I couldn't walk anymore. And it was just like, yeah, you're stressing like, such BS. I'm not stressed. I'm just busy just because I'm an entrepreneur. Okay, fair enough.
And it took me five months to recover. So I guess they were right. And things changed because this was basically the pre-stage of burnout that I was in. And nine months after being in the hospital, I was booked out with clients for the first time. And part of the reason I got booked out when the thing I was doing had not changed at all, was because I started marketing myself authentically. I started tapping into what makes me, me. What makes me go beyond just another strategist because you don't stand out that way.
If you're in branding like you don't want people comparing you to a different branding expert or I don't want people comparing me to different business strategist or coach. I want them to want me like I am the only option. And that's what I started doing.
Annie: I love it.Are you familiar with Dorie Clark at all? So Dorie Clark… she's actually a professor here in North Carolina. She teaches at the Duke School of Business. But she is also I think, a best selling author. And she's written a couple books, one of which is called Entrepreneurial You. And something you just said really reminded me of a quote I read about a year ago sitting in Hawaii, taking a break from my business. And the quote was, you want to get to a place where people pay you for who you are, not what you do. And there's some version of that right? I think you just so eloquently said it. You want people to hire Maggie. Not to or want to work specifically with you not, you know, I'm like 10 different other coaches and you know.
Maggie: I mean, you can and if you're considering hiring I do...I ironically encourage you to go have those conversations with other coaches and strategists. But at the end of the day, if you get yourself in that position with your marketing and your branding and positioning that other people are weighing you versus five other people who do the same thing. That it gets dangerously close to price competition. That's when you get people saying, hey, this other copywriter, photographer, whatever offered me it for X amount. Can you give me a discount? No.
Annie: It's called like the race to the bottom, right?
Maggie: Yeah, exactly. And the answer should be no, because I'm amazing and you know it. And you should want me that's the ideal answer.
Annie: Exactly. And it seems like you've really, you know, we've known each other for a couple years at this point, I've really seen you, you know, shift your shift your branding.
You know, Maggie has an incredible series. You should look it up. It's called From Burnout to Booked Out, is that right? I remember that see like, we didn't even talk about this before, but I remember that it's so signature to who you are. So the pivot was just being more you, if we distill it down. Yeah, so much more to it.
Maggie: Which sounds so simplistic and it was like, I would want to say like five months of intense soul searching, and work, and brainstorming and just like, frustration before I started like okay, here's what I do. And as an example, there's a reason I mention my dog Frodo in my professional bio. I did a talk last week in the Netherlands in Rotterdam. And I introduced myself and I said to da-da-da and my dog Frodo and half the audience went, oh, Frodo. And you know, those are the ones who know Lord of the Rings. Those the ones who know their fantasy, and that immediately changes my positioning in their perspective.
Annie: Absolutely. And so much of what you've said to rework, the Maggie Giele brand really ties into magic and unlock your magic and all of these pieces that tie into fantasy which is a personal interest of yours. But it really does relate to the magic of marketing. I love it. But we shouldn't keep people waiting for your first tip, which I think is very much related to this. So with authentic marketing being something you really do so well, what is the first thing that small business owners need to know about it?
#1 Action TIP
Know and Highlight Your Strengths
Maggie: I think it really comes down to you're, I'm going to switch these around because this is going to be the first one, it really comes down to your strengths. What makes you unique and what are you good at?
For a long time, I did what a lot of coaches told me, that I really needed to niche down and just do launch strategy or just do content strategy. And I didn't. Maybe I would have gotten more clients faster if I had specialized but I really didn't want to because what I am really good at is the big picture. It is pulling all these puzzle pieces together. And that is my strength and being able to tap into that and this links to your marketing as well.
I know I like talking to people. I am much better at spending you know, 15 minutes doing something about my face and then spending an hour doing an interview or doing a video or recording something, then writing a blog post. Because that would take me not one hour but probably five and I will still hate it by the end of it, by when I was done.
Annie: Yes, yes, I love that I think you're such a proponent of that. And that's where I think we have so many values that align. And when it comes to my own marketing too I don't want to do the things, it took me years to realize like oh, you can do the things that are fun and be effective in marketing as opposed to doing the things that you want to tear your hair out about like blog post writing. I'm a writer but I don't want to write a blog post either. I don't see a lot of great return on them.
That's part of why I'm doing this series of Branding With Friends because it's something outside my comfort zone. It's fun like you've been doing a lot of podcasts, now you're working on a podcast that might even be out when this episode comes out. Hopefully! Of course, I'm sure it will be and I'm sure it will be amazing to learn more from her.
But that this is the thing about playing to your strengths is that people don't really realize you don't have to do what everybody else does. And I think you're such a big champion of that. You live that story, and then you coach others on how to do it. So yeah, playing to your strengths is so important.
Maggie: Thank you. I appreciate that. And it's like I went, well, part of my burnout story was that I thought that I had to spend hours a day on Facebook groups, I thought I had to write blog posts. I was so stuck because I didn't know my branding. I didn't know what made me different or unique. So I didn't have a specialty. Nothing. So I had, at one point 55 unpublished blog posts, because I generally thought they were just so crap. I couldn't publish them.
Then this is more recent, I went a year and a half without publishing a new blog post, and my business had not burned down. Because in the meantime, I built up my Facebook group offices in Europe. I ran about seven international live events. I ran my mastermind twice. And yeah, I mean, in the last year, I've published three blog posts and will be more consistent once I have the podcast. Which I'm now batching because again, I know my strengths and weaknesses. Consistency and doing something in a routine is not one of my strengths. Which means I batch all the things whenever possible.
Annie: Yeah. And that's, I think that you really are a great example of knowing thyself. The more you know thyself the more you can be a better business owner and also be there for your clients. Like you said your business didn't die but didn’t it take off really like the fewer blog posts you wrote?
Maggie: Yeah it did actually.
Annie: Am I right? Like let's give you some credit here.
Maggie: It did. And that was it's so ironic because that basically goes against everything you hear with basic marketing, which is Instagram, and blog posts, and newsletter and that's kind of it. But I was still active on the platforms that gave me joy like my Facebook group. I was still active on Instagram stories. Not even Instagram, Instagram stories. You can follow me there you will like Frodo in various positions of cuddling throughout the day and kind of what I'm up to. And it's really about playing to your strengths and avoiding your weaknesses because at the end of the day, it's your business and you can do it whatever like, whatever which way you want.
Annie: Yeah, we missed the joy in that because we think we have to do it. The 'should' is very powerful in marketing. I think it's very powerful in branding. It's very powerful in all of these things, but you know, you get to be the captain of the ship and people often see that power. You don't do that. I think you're such a good empowerment chief for others to teach them that. So thank you.
So playing to our strengths. That is definitely a first place to start. What about the next thing what's what's the next thing we should do after we're really more in touch with our strengths and we're going to align our marketing activities to feel fun so that people are engaged with us because they know we're engaged in what we're doing?
#2 ACTION TIP
Have Fun with Your Marketing
Maggie: Yeah, I think having fun with your marketing is really a big one. I was marketing myself as a strategist, and I hated my marketing, I wasn't getting any clients with my marketing. When I started having more fun and talked about Harry Potter and my dog Frodo, and I don't know, reading The Wheel of Time any of my like hardcore fantasy fans will get that, Game of Thrones type thing. People start remembering me, and noticing me, and coming back to me. And I think it's really about staying focused.
One mistake I see really often is that, I get it yes it's like without judgment, I've done it myself. But people go into marketing and they try and do everything at the same time. But if you look at someone like Amy Porterfield or Jasmine Star, or GaryVee, we love them, admire them, but they have like literally full time teams of people, helping them with their marketing.
You as a solo entrepreneur, or even like if you have finally have hired your first virtual assistant, logistically it is not possible for you to be able to churn out that level of marketing content. So it's so much better for your time management, for energy management, for your mental health, to figure out where can you get the best… what element or what platform can you focus on that does give you joy and that does connect your ideal clients.
For example, if you are, let's say a life coach and you focus on busy single moms who, you know have three kids and two jobs. Do you think they will have time to watch 90-minute webinars? Although that may be the thing that you love...targeting the wrong audience, they're not going to do it. Same thing, if you work with professionals who are commuting. If they're commuting to their work, audio is such a great way to reach them. And this could be, doesn't have to be a podcast, it could be audio. I send out audio in my newsletters. Like a five, seven-minute little audio clip. And I've had people message me like, oh, this was amazing. I rode my bike to work and it was able to listen to your newsletter today. So keep that element of your audience really top of mind.
Annie: I love that and I'm glad you brought that up because I just got your newsletter the other day and saw the same thing and I was really interested in the topic didn't really have time to listen to it, but I was curling my hair at the time. And so I just pressed play and it was super easy. People think well to do audio I have to have a podcast. You don't have to have a podcast, you can literally just include an audio file., How do you record those currently Maggie?
Maggie: So I've been doing this for about three years - those little audio clips. I press record on my mic like this one, this microphone is new. I bought it for my podcast. Before that, like whatever mic I was using, sometimes on my phone, sometimes just a built-in laptop, microphone. I press record and just the voice recorder on my laptop. And I would press attach file. That's it. Like, and it was anywhere between one and I think my longest ever was maybe seven and a half minutes or something.
Annie: You're very concise. You're much more concise than I am.
Maggie: Well, it's I don't think it's about being concise. I think it's for me because I'm not concise. I talk a lot. It's about knowing my audience. I know I can ramble on about a topic but they're going to stop paying attention. So I know that I have to be, even with audio, I have to keep it quick and simple. And just get to the point. Here's the info, here's how to apply it. See you next week.
Annie: Yeah, and I think you make a lot of excellent points. And it's great to start in a place of like, you know, playing to your strengths, but then also being strategic. So what I see that as is like, the fun into the strategy, right? Because it has to go through a strategic filter. So if it's fun to you, but it's not going to reach your audience. What is the point of doing it?
Maggie: There are ways like this, of combining it. Maybe your audience doesn't have time to listen to hour-long podcast interviews, but you love audio, great. Can you make like, super quick mini, like three minute audio clips? Batch them all, and you have content for the next six months?
Annie: Yeah, we all think that we have to be doing all this stuff. And you know, going back to what you were saying about, you had these unpublished blog posts. I was in a phase for a couple of years where I was writing an hour a week. I was writing these very powerful essays about branding that I'm still really proud of, and I think had good engagement.
But because I looked every year like where were my clients coming from, they just weren't coming from the newsletter to justify the 50 hours a year I was spending on it. And so I have over time spent less and less time on my newsletter email marketing, but actually the business has grown and grown and grown.
It's freed me up to focus on the things that I find fun, that are also strategic. Because I think that my audience for whatever reason, maybe the newsletter thing isn't as connecting is what I do with in-person workshops and things like that. Right, so one of the things that I have also come to realize when I was saying that sort of fun in the strategy is I used to do it the opposite. Where I'd be like, what's the strategic thing to do? How do I make it fun? And I've since reversed that. So I start with what sounds inherently fun. It sounds like you have to where you start with like, where's the joy for you? Because you have to get up every day and do this work, because it is work. And then where does it fit strategically?
Maggie: I did that this year. This is probably the thing that has had the biggest impact on my business growth because like things have really taken off, like even more than they were the last year and a half. And that was with my events. And that was not a strategic decision. I was just like, I want to hang out with more people in person. That was it.
And my first event, my very first one was a meetup, a free meetup in London. We had 22 people turn up. One flew in from Dublin, just for that meetup. Like it was people got up at five in the morning driving from Cardiff, which was amazing. Then I was like, huh, okay, people are interested. Cool.
So the next thing I did was a $50 workshop in my living room. Like I had enough chairs for the attendees but I didn't have one for myself, so my foot cramped by the end of the day. I had to like literally just kneel on the floor.
But less than two years after that $50 workshop I hosted an invite-only curated high-level retreat in Tuscany, in Italy, for entrepreneurs literally making millions. And I was there I'm just like, am I literally hosting a retreat for like Amber McHugh and huh...okay, try not to panic, try not to panic. And that's been like something that's completely changed how I run my business.
Next year, 2020, I'm running four retreats, one in Florida. Which is going to be really, really exciting. And it started from, here's the thing I want to do because it's gonna be fun and I'm excited about it. And I've realized that so much of my business, of my business growth and success and opportunities, have come from things that I was like, I shouldn't do this thing because it's going to be fun.
Annie: Yes, we're here to tell you guys that you can have fun in your marketing. Start with the fun and then put it through the strategy funnel.
Maggie: Yeah, because if you hate your marketing, which I did at one point, what do you think everyone else reading it is going to feel? The moment I start talking about dragons and unicorns, and like Harry, like, if you sign up for my mastermind you get like a little GIF in you're welcome email that says like you're a wizard, Annie, things like that. And that makes me have a lot of fun with it as well.
Annie: If I can tell you a confession is I definitely googled Amsterdam tickets when you were hosting a retreat within the past year. Because I was like, I need to do this. And your marketing is very compelling. And the more you've developed and gotten into that strategy and shared your story of how you help clients and being their guide, it's pulled me like a magnet to you. Even though I'm here in the states and you're in Amsterdam. One day, one day we'll meet.
But you know, thinking about branding, you do such a great job of translating your branding into your marketing. When you work with clients and they come to you for the business coaching, for the strategy, the authentic marketing piece. How important do you think them having a brand and to the extent they need to have a brand is to their success with you but also just their success in growing a business. So when they come to you how branded do you want them to be?
Maggie: For me? I don't need to have them very branded, but they need to have a direction in mind. So I talk a lot about having a North Star that could be like your what do you want your business to look like, to feel like. For me, I think all my designers hate me because I never know what something's supposed to look like. I'm like here's the emotions I want to feel when I look at it. That's how I describe stuff.
So for me personally, I work with a lot of clients who don't really have a strong brand but they're aware of that and they know that need to have it. So sometimes I help them work on the messaging more often than not at the same time as working on a strategy I send them to a branding specialist to work alongside me.
Because I can I do a lot of work on messaging and things like that but I don't go anywhere near as in-depth as a branding specialist could go. Honestly with my business and growth, I think the two key things have been the events because that's got to be like credibility, visibility, authority, connections, etc. and my branding. The fact that I was out and about like a random, non-business related like cocktail evening, and someone came up to me is like, are you Maggie that Harry Potter marketing coach? I'm just like, I'll take it. Yeah, cool!
Annie: Yes, that's what you want. I have a series here called Branding With Annie and I have people come up to me at events and go you're Brand Annie, I know you. I can't come to your events but I really want to. But I think one of the things you do really well with events that connect to branding that people forget you know if you guys are planning events, you, Maggie brands every single one of her events. So there's like Scale Your Strategy Live and Unlock Your Magic.
Maggie: I've actually just rebranded that because this is interesting for branding. So the initial name for two rounds was Unlock Your Magic, and I was like, it's good, but it's not quite right. And I realized why it wasn't right because I don't help people unlock their magic. You've already unlocked your magic. I help you take it like a step or a level higher. So that kind of made me and now I've rebranded it to the Magic Momentum Mastermind. Because it's about, it's for service-based entrepreneurs to help you scale up and step up and build upon the momentum you have already started. So I'm there giving you a push.
Annie: And that's a great example to I think, of showing that in branding and in marketing, you can change your game plan. You should, over time when you learn that, hey, this message is there, but it's not quite there. And you didn't let the fact that it wasn't quite there keep you from doing it in the first place.
Maggie: Yeah, I knew it was good. It was close, but it wasn't quite it. And when I, yeah, and with this round, I've rebranded and I was like, this is what feels right. It feels like a lot stronger for me.
Annie: Well, and we're coming around and you are going to share that sort of third and final really good tip with everybody today. But before we do that, how can people who are listening to this or watching this how can they connect with you, Maggie?
Maggie: Instagram is always good. I'm there @MaggieGiele, and I'm much more active on Instagram Stories than I am in the feed. But that's a great way. And if you are a Europe based entrepreneur or freelancer, I would be more than happy to welcome you in Bosses in Europe.
Annie: Oh, yes. We hope we have lots of international listeners or people like me who would be willing to fly just to learn from Maggie. Well, that's fantastic. So definitely check out Maggie Giele.
Maggie: And I remembered my train of thought. So for example, with niching down your branding. I've been calling myself a business and marketing strategist. And I've been like, yeah, I work with anyone. And I generally really like working with a range of people, but only recently have I said, Hmm, actually, if I could choose, I would prefer to work with service-based entrepreneurs? Yeah, I can. And I have successfully worked with product-based entrepreneurs in the past. We had great results. But when I thought about it, I do have a preference.
And this is the thing about being clear, because now I can say, hey, I'm a service-based entrepreneur. I'm a strategist and I help service-based entrepreneurs scale to get more visible and make more money. Then the next time if that's you, or you know, someone, that's such a strong mental connection for you say, oh, you need to talk to that person.
Annie: And that's the power of, people are afraid of niching down, but that's, that's the power of it is you become more top of mind with people. And I've had a similar shift where I do occasionally work with product-based businesses and business owners. But where I really shine is helping with service-based and that's what I love to do.
It's so much easier when you feel like you can hit a home run for somebody to take them on and do that. And that just keeps you moving so well. So I think that's such a great point. You've shared a lot with us today first about playing to our strengths and then secondly, of course, we want to stay focused and be really strategic about how we do that. What is the third thing that you think is so important about authentic marketing for small business owners?
#3 Action Tip
Focus on High Impact Marketing, With Less Busy Work
Maggie: It's about high impact marketing. And this comes back to like, you don't need to have a blog. You don't need to even have a newsletter. You don't need to be on Instagram.
You need to find a way, a platform, or a method of sharing your message and content with the right people. It doesn't have to be any of this status quo.
And one of the number one ways of building relationships and connections with the audience online is through video. So Annie like what you're doing I'm just like yes, a strategy well done. You're collaborating, it's got video, it's got audio. It's amazing!
But we're looking at like, bare minimum have like a one-minute introduction video about yourself on your website, on your about page. Like that is the bare minimum of marketing.
And as an example, like Annie here mentioned my YouTube series From Burnt Out to Booked Out. I did that over two years ago. I've not done anything new on YouTube for about a year and a half to two years now. I still have people coming to me talking about that series or sharing it with their friends or email me about it. And I'm getting leads and clients two years later. That long longevity of those hours that I put in for YouTube. So great.
Annie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's something where we feel like things have to be perfect. And so we don't do them, because that's human nature and, but I think that that's such a great note to end on. So playing to our strengths and staying focused and then just being really strategic with our time too. And really not doing all that busy work and worrying so much about being a thought leader is get it done. Get it out there. Name the thing even if it's not perfect, go do it. You'll learn from it. Maggie, you have so much to teach us just from your own experience, but also the work that you do and clients and I am so glad you were here on Branding With Friends. So thank you so much for being here today.
Maggie: Thank you so much for having me.
“Branding with Friends” Episode 6
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips on how to use authentic marketing to grow your service business:
Know and highlight your strengths
Have fun with your marketing
Focus on high impact marketing with less busy work
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