Megan Martin 0:00
This is talking small business with Kat Schmoyer. And Megan Martin, a podcast for creatives who like to keep it real about what it actually takes to grow an online business,

Kat Schmoyer 0:09
where competitors turned to biz besties, who chat daily, and now we’re bringing you into the conversation.

Hey, y’all, welcome back to this week’s episode of talking small business. So pumped to talk about this. Alright, so this week Meghnad, I wanted to talk about being multi passionate and like what that looks like in our businesses. And because Megan is our go to Marketing and messaging expert, we thought we take that spin on it, because we know that that can be a struggle that so many other multi passionate entrepreneurs can have is how do I market and message this? Well? How does it look like it all kind of fits together? Yet, sometimes it doesn’t really fit together, because we’re multi passionate, and our passions are potentially a little bit all over the place. So we’re excited to dive into this. Megan and I both have a variety of revenue streams, a variety of brands, underneath of you know, our businesses, and we do both consider ourselves to be multi passionate. Yeah, Megan, let’s like, start with maybe to like, kick off and let everybody just be more fully aware of the ways that we’re both multi passionate? Like, could you share a little bit about how that comes out? For you? And for Jeremy, like for both of you guys, in your family and in your businesses?

Megan Martin 1:30
Yeah. So recently, like, very recently, in the last few weeks, Jeremy and I have like, combined forces, as entrepreneurs. So before the last few weeks, he was kind of doing his own business. And I was doing my own business. And I that was natural for us, because I’ve been doing my own business for the last 10 years. But we really realized we both were feeling so stuck in our marketing and messaging. So this episode is so timely for me. You’re both feeling stuck. And we were both looking at this concept of like creating these consistent and like well developed marketing plans. And we’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is so much work. I mean, if you own a business, you know, that marketing and marketing in general is just a huge, huge chunk of your time. It’s a huge part of your business. But literally when you look at the time involved, marketing is insane. It just takes up so much of an effort and mental energy, even when you’re not doing it you’re thinking about,

Kat Schmoyer 2:30
right, right? We’re basically just marketers like That’s our job. Yes,

Megan Martin 2:35
we’re marketers, right. And so both of us were sitting down looking at doing this concept of building out marketing plans. And if you’ve listened to previous episodes, I kind of I’ve been lacks in my marketing for the last two years, honestly, like I was able to kind of ride the coattails of having a very strong referral based network in my business and my customers. And I’m so thankful for that. But I’m getting to the point where like, I actually need to start doing more of the organic content work that I’ve done in the past, I need to like step back into that mode. And so we’re looking at this, like, you know, him doing a marketing plan me doing a marketing plan, tic TOCs, and reels and emails and all the things that happen in a marketing plan and creating content. And we’re like, oh, my gosh, no, this is too much work. Can we combine forces and we really realize that actually, our brands do fit together, even though we do and teach completely different things like our storyline works really well together, which I think we should talk a lot about in this episode is just like how to create a story behind the brand, when you’re multi passionate. But for us being multi passionate under one roof looks like Jeremy teaches a course on investing in residential real estate. That’s how we’ve built long term wealth, and we’ve secured our retirement is through our properties. And then I teach entrepreneurs how to create digital products. So from courses memberships, templates, all of that and so we’ve kind of fit the storyline together that Jeremy has secured our wealth and and can teach you how to build wealth in the long term. And that’s what our like whole real estate investment situation has done for us. And then I can teach you how to build build wealth and generate cash in the short term with digital products. Again, that can still be a long term play, but you’re you’re going to you’re going to generate cash quicker in the short term by creating digital products. So that’s how like us being multi passionate looks like and then of course like we throw in other things that we do that have nothing to do with that so I shall I sell show website templates and my daughters and I just launched a physical product shot we’re like selling jewelry that has nothing to do with what digital products or real estate is. So like I would consider our brand like a very big example of being multi passionate, in this case.

Kat Schmoyer 4:55
100% But it works and that’s what’s so cool and I mean I also have brands that are very multi passionate my storyline is I’m not the messaging and marketing expert, you guys like I can’t like wrap my storyline up. And like this perfectly pink bow like Megan and Jeremy can which I love. I’ve actually struggled for years over like, how do my brands work together? And like Megan net like, she’s like nodding your head right now because of the like 10 minute max amount of Vox messages. I’m like, allowed to send her like stressing about like, how does Creative At Heart Conference like fit with Kat Schmoyer. But then I have weddings over here and like, what does this all mean? So if that’s you, if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, okay, but I have a lot of things and like, how do I mash them together? First of all, you’re not alone. Second of all, they probably mesh together better than you think they do. Honestly, within the last like year and a half. I’ve had a lot of lightbulb moments in my own brands about like, wow, this is how my coaching and my integration business fits with the fact that I host a conference. And this is how this ties into my wedding planning expertise. Like I’m able to start to see some of that, even though all three of my businesses live on totally separate websites with totally separate social media accounts. Like they all have like separate entities, yet they’re working together. So I’m really excited to talk about this. Because again, Megan is our expert in how can we make it all fit together really well. So that when we’re marketing, because we know we need to market like that’s our job, as entrepreneurs is to market our products and our services. So when we’re marketing, let’s make sure we’re marketing well, and it all ties in together. So Megan, I don’t even know how to like, like first steps like tips for this, like what would what would you tell someone who is multi passionate? who’s listening and wondering like, But Megan, I don’t think they fit like how do I find that storyline?

Megan Martin 6:49
I think to start like that is the key that we need to like know, and accept and realize as marketers and as our own copywriters. That’s what we are in our business, like you are a copywriter. If you own a business unless you literally hire a copywriter to do the work. Welcome to the world writing. Welcome to the world of business messaging. And so I think if you can focus your energy and your effort on building a brand story, then you are going to start taking the steps to help connect all of these dots. Because the truth is, if you can establish a really strong brand story, then it doesn’t matter what you sell, it doesn’t matter what you launch people, when people feel connected to the story, they’re going to buy whatever it is that you have to offer. I mean, let me just give it very tangible example that, you know, I’ve been selling digital products, I have a membership, Jeremy talks about real estate, I mean, we literally had zero business savvy in the world of physical products, we had no idea what we’re doing. And this was just such a silly little idea in my mind to start a jewelry shop. And it was all for the thought of like launching it for my kids and letting them see like the backend of entrepreneurship at such a young age. And we launched and we made $2,400 in sales in the first week. And like my six and eight year old daughters launch this business, right. And so my point is that I didn’t do any marketing, and priming and webinars and all this stuff that people fuss about when it comes to launching a business. But I have a really strong brand and brand story that’s been built up over time. And so it didn’t matter that it had nothing to do with digital products, when I launched something I have a loyal following. And I think that is what the power of brand story can do for you. And so I think I would tell you to turn inward to start at the beginning phases if you don’t feel like you have a strong brand story I would say turn inward and I want you to think about what I want you to think about like what excites you about being a business owner? Or what excites you about what you do? Is there a concept? Or is there a specific talent that you have that literally you can’t think of anybody else who has that like we need to find something unique about you and your experience and what you’re doing in business and pull from there so for let me like put this into an example for you. So for Jeremy and I were doing completely polar opposite things like he just teaching real estate, I’m teaching digital products. So we had to put our heads together and literally just did this process of okay, well how can we connect this dot because these are like truly opposite ends of the world things right? So we came together and we thought okay, what, what is unique about what we do? Well, we knew we know that buying real estate builds wealth, but technically even though selling digital products is not quote unquote building long term wealth there is wealth involved with selling something right. So that that’s now you In that unique, right, but we could find a connection point in the two things. And then we thought, okay, what is what is really unique about our experience and because Jeremy has secured our long term finances, and because I generate cash in the present through digital products, which really doesn’t require that much work on my end, at this point, we both feel a lot of freedom. And so that is where it really starts to get unique about our story. Like we have freedom. And yet we’re not trust fund babies, we’re not, you know, we didn’t come from, you know, having a silver platter when we started our marriage and our businesses together. So now we’re able to build a story around this concept of, we’ve been able to create freedom because we what we do in our work, and now we can share that with you. So that’s just like an example of how you can look at what you’ve got going on in your experience and how you can pull out something that connects the dots and start building your story from that little connection point.

Kat Schmoyer 11:03
I love that. And so obviously, for Megan and Jeremy it like for you guys, it’s I mean, you’re married, and you’re doing your businesses together. So you’re both you know, work from home entrepreneurs and really get to cultivate that within this storyline. But like for those of you guys listening, where it’s like you with multiple brands, or trying to think through, like, how do these fit, it is still a similar process, like, how are these connecting? And can can we talk about like, and maybe I’m getting too, like, practical with it? So if you’re like, No, this is not a good this, this won’t work? Well, for like this podcast episode, let me know Megan, but I feel like the biggest question I tend to get a lot is, well, I have multiple brands. So how do I portray this in my marketing? So in terms of do I have multiple Instagram accounts? Do I have multiple email lists? Do I have multiple websites like, so what would be and I know you and Jeremy just did something. And I have something different than what you guys have. So I’d love for us to talk about, like what we’re doing and what’s worked and not worked within that scenario?

Megan Martin 12:07
Yeah, I would say if you truly cannot find a connection point at all, whether it is something of an emotional experience, like for example, I think we brought up Lauren Karns before but she has this whole concept of her brand story about gathering around the table, and how she loves to serve by cooking, right and like gathering people for a meal. And so she does photography, but she also does business coaching. And she’s able to tie those together in this storyline of gathering around the table even though they’re completely different offers for completely different people that’s let that’s like building a story around an emotional experience. And you can do that. Or you can find something more tangible and practical. So for like cat and your experience like in your business, I would say you have something that’s a little bit more tangible than an emotional experience that ties your things together. So you have like the calendar products, you have your integrator services, you have coaching, and in all of that it’s based on your unique strengths and talents as somebody who is very strategic, and planner focused and goal oriented. Right. Right. That’s really like tactic that’s more like tangible, I think. But if you can’t find any connection point like if there is absolutely positively zero connection point, that’s when I think that you should consider splitting things apart. It’s just too confusing when you when you are trying to speak to multiple people. And there is no connection point. That’s when right Zoomers are like what is going on? What do you do? Who are you? And why are you talking to me? Totally,

Kat Schmoyer 13:45
no, I completely agree. Because I mean, there is power in one. I mean, that’s literally a marketing, like mantra is like that, like power of one, like speak to one person. So like for me, years ago, I split up my wedding planning Instagram, with my coaching. And now integration like all of that, like those brands are totally separate brands on Instagram. And I I debated on doing that for a long time before I did. And then even after I did it, I was like I make the right decision. This is so annoying. Now I have to Instagram, you know, like, oh, like all of these things. But it’s been such a blessing. Because on the one I speak to couples and I know exactly who I’m speaking to and what I’m doing over on that account. And then on my other account, I’m doing what Megan just said, and I’m talking about some of my digital products. I’m talking to my service based clients. I’m speaking to a separate person. And so for me, it made a lot of sense to split them. Because there wasn’t a good storyline, I didn’t feel like in the combo of the two. Now a lot of you guys listening might also be in the wedding industry or some sort of photographer or service planner, florists, something like that and you’re factoring in coaching or digital products. There might be a way to connect the two at least in the beginning. So you don’t want to add more work to your plate by like all the sudden you cut everything up and then you’re trying to like, make it also organized and like neat and tidy with like every single multi passion of yours is like in its own box. And that might not work either. And it might just become a little bit more chaotic. So I don’t necessarily recommend like jumping to that I think Megan’s point of look at the storyline and like, can you use other marketing tactics like content buckets, or, you know, other ways that you can like factor in all of these various things that you do, while still speaking to your one same loyal audience that’s going to kind of dip into a lot of the different things that you’re offering?

Megan Martin 15:35
Yeah, I totally agree. And like even thinking of the, in my own example, with like, our jewelry shop is called Rhys and Rene. And that has nothing to do with what Jeremy and I teach, right. But this is the beginning phases, we literally launched a week and a half ago, like I was not, I did not want to put on our plate of doing a new email list and a new Instagram account and all of this stuff. But we were able to tie this into our story, which is that like freedom entrepreneurship story. And so when you hear us talk about Rhys and Rene, like Jeremy and I talk about it, we’re going to talk about it under that lens that like, hey, we have digital products, we have real estate. And because we have those things, and we’ve built our wealth in the way we have, we now have freedom in time, we have freedom and both time and our financial resources to go explore new things like teach our kids how to start a business, right. And so that is the storyline with which we present the wild card thing that doesn’t fit in. Right. But and every time you’ve heard like, you might not realize that’s what I’m doing on Instagram. But that’s what I’ve been doing this entire time as I’ve been building up to our launch is sharing from the entrepreneurship angle, which perfectly fits into my brand story that I have set up. So that’s why if you can really establish a story about who you are, what you do, and why somebody should care about that, like, what is the benefit for them. If you can create a story around that you can launch whatever it is that you want to launch, as long as you can fit it into that lens of that storyline. And then if you can’t, that’s when you’re like, hey, let’s make the decision to move this somewhere else. Because if you feel friction and coming up with messaging, or if you feel friction with coming up with content, then you’re probably going to start slacking on creating content, you’re going to start slacking in your marketing, that’s going to happen or your consumers if like you don’t really believe in what you’re doing, it comes through and your marketing and your messaging. And so even if you’re like trying really hard, almost if you’re trying really hard, that might be a clue that it’s coming through to your your followers, right and your audience. It should feel effortless to both you and them. And if you start to feel friction, like that is the first sign that something is not right here.

Kat Schmoyer 18:04
Absolutely. You also want to think through like are sales lacking in any of them? Because that’s also going to be a sign that like, Oh, am I struggling to like, either equally promote these things that I’m doing? Or am I like pushing one more than the other. And so people like, forget that I do this or, like, that’s another part of the equation, I feel like we need to make sure that like, as the marketers of these products and services that we have, like, we’re taking that into consideration with our marketing efforts, if we’re doing something in that multi passionate realm.

Megan Martin 18:39
Yeah, I mean, obviously, I feel like we love to say, you know, let revenue be the guy, you know, like, guide you. And there, there are times that that’s not necessarily only tied to promotion, you know, like, you might be trying to push something and it’s just not working for consumers, right. But and I think there is going to be play with that too. And a part of like this marketing with being a multi passionate creator, like do you want to split your marketing up and two seasons to where one season you promote one certain offer or service and then another season you focus on something else, I think that’s probably the easiest way to get started in the multi passionate world is to really break things up into seasons of marketing, where you’re focusing on one thing at a time, even though you are a multi passionate creator. And but I think they’re good, I think you like pass a threshold at a certain point where it doesn’t really matter. So for example, like I’ve been doing business for 10 years, and I think it doesn’t really matter at this point, like people, my audience knows me for who I am and what I do and what our story is. And so I it kind of releases that, like pressure of yeah, having to fit things in boxes. Totally,

Kat Schmoyer 19:52
you know, totally. Yeah, your audience has like grown up with you and as your multi passions. That’s not even really that Right, where does it whatever you don’t? I mean, it’s all come, you know, it’s fine. So that actually brings me to a great question, or one I feel like would potentially be really beneficial for y’all listening. Megan, how do you explain a new storyline or present a new storyline to an existing audience? So you already have built a business. And now you’re like, Oh, I’m so multi passionate, I want to start this other thing, and I want to incorporate it in and I’ve got a storyline. I feel like it really fits like, how can you do that? That doesn’t cause confusion to existing audience members? Hmm,

Megan Martin 20:36
I think, first and foremost, you just have to kind of let that go right off the bat, like, not not stressing about confusion? Because the truth is, people probably are going to be confused. I’m sure people are confused. Like, why do I keep talking about making bracelets right now? You know, like, I’m sure there are people that are confused. But marketing, one of like, the key marketing rules is repetition, right? It’s people, people need to hear things, I think the original number was seven. But now I feel like it’s like 127. With the internet, you know, people need to hear things so many times before they resonate with the message that you’re saying. And then before they purchase based on the message that you’re saying, right? So let’s just let’s just accept that there’s going to be confusion at the start, there absolutely is going to be confusion, and that’s okay. And that’s in your benefit to know that and accept that. So that way, you will start being more repetitive with your messaging and not just give up after day two, when nobody’s like engaging with you on. Right. So for me, when I introduce the accessory shop, I just introduced it as something like we’re so excited, like, we’re making this random bracelet, like I didn’t say, Hey, I’m launching a business in a month, like, I just was, like, look at these cute bracelets that we made, right, like, so that was just sharing on social media in a very, like, normal, relatable way, right. And then slowly, I started to introduce the concept like, hey, you know, my daughters are making these bracelets of me, it’s not just me, you know. And then I started thinking, like, I’ve been thinking about starting a business with my daughters, and like, letting them you know, see what it’s like to build a business and having these conversations about life and being an adult managing money and all of the things. And so I kind of built it up slow, slowly over time, which is getting to my point of, don’t be afraid to bring your audience into the very, very, very beginning phases of whatever else of whatever you’re dreaming about doing. I think that’s the best way to introduce it in a way that doesn’t catch them off guard. As opposed to like keeping something secret, and then launching it all of a sudden, it has nothing to do with what you’re offering or what you’ve been talking to your audience about. But when you slowly bring them into that creation story. They get excited, even if it’s something completely different.

Kat Schmoyer 22:55
Mm hmm. No, I agree. And people love a good behind the scenes. Yeah. Like they love to see like, oh, what like, why is she doing this? How is this working? Like, what what is this all about? And so I think for us to be a little bit more transparent, in the early stages of whatever the new offer or service or product is, can be really powerful for our audience.

Megan Martin 23:19
Yeah, I mean, I would say that every time I’ve launched something, whether it’s literally a new thing, or I’m doing some sort of promotional period, I can look at the history of my marketing, and I’m going to call it organic marketing, not like advertising. I can look at the history of my marketing and see a direct correlation in those periods, where when I make more money, it’s because I spent more time bringing my audience into the behind the scenes and into the creation story. So even for example, when I relaunched my course websites that convert back in, I think it was 2019. I literally brought my audience in to like, see every bit of it from like the outline that I scribbled on a piece of paper to bringing that into script mode to creating the slides. I was literally sharing all of that on Instagram stories. So you watched me build the course before I launched it. And I didn’t do you know, this really built out like savvy content plan all I did really to build the the hype around that course launch was bring you into the creation of it. And that was like a great launch for us. So I could like see that. And I saw the same thing. And recent Rene like by inviting my audience into seeing us build it from the ground up. We had we never expected the kind of launch that we got on launch day.

Kat Schmoyer 24:47
I love it. I mean, it’s really good priming content. And just like you said, you don’t have to necessarily have this strategic priming content of let me just show my audience their problem so that my course is the solution or my product is solution like, yes, of course, that priming content works and works really well. But this is a flip side to it. And I feel like what the difference too. And I know we’re like veering off topic like slightly, but I feel like the difference in the priming is you had an audience built up. So I think if you’re still trying to build your audience, when you’re launching you want to go with the more traditional, you have a problem? Because you want the people to see like, Yes, I know, I need you to help me. Whereas when you already have people, they know they have a problem. They know you’re the expert that can help them. So then Megan’s like, yeah, you know, I’m the website guru. Let me show you behind the scenes of what I’m building out for you. Now doors are open. And that type of runway worked really well.

Megan Martin 25:42
Yeah, yeah. And again, there are seasons, and there’s going to be thresholds of like, audience building. So this is, I think this is like, a really great way to even wrap this episode up is to say, Listen, you’re going to what what we, the people that we look towards, are light years ahead of us. And we need to remember that all day, every day, you know, because it’s easy to see from the outside looking in with the plant like what they did, right? And so are like, Okay, well, it worked for them. Let me carbon copy this kind of concept or strategy. And hopefully, it’ll work for me. And some of the time, the answer is that is going to work for you. But other times, you don’t realize behind the scenes, the variables that allow them to produce in the capacity that they are producing, right. So in my instance, if you’re looking towards say me, and you’re saying, Wow, Megan and Jeremy do like a million different things, and they seem to be really successful, so I can do whatever I want. And I’ll be really successful. Well, if you’re like, just starting out in business, and you have a very small audience, you might run the risk of really confusing them, like you might run the risk of really like, not letting like your core thing, what you do really, really well resonate long enough with them, for them for you to introduce something new to them. Right, right. And so it’s almost like, even though I want you to let your multi passionate wings fly, I would never tell you not to do that. I would say it would be wise of you to think about timing. And to think about like, even if I have this great dream. Am I at a season with my audience where this is the best time to launch this? Or should I maybe put this off, just so that I can really develop a strong audience before I do this? Upgrade? Yeah, so I think it’s, it would be really wise to think that through whereas like you don’t see the variables behind why people are successful in the way that they’re successful.

Kat Schmoyer 27:37
Right, right. I mean, you said it before you have been in business for 10 years. So there’s been a lot of audience build up over that time. So if you’re somebody listening that started within the last year, even within the last like three years, you want to not that Megan doesn’t need to think about what she offered, you know, not that her and I will think I’ll just offer like whatever. No, we still like think about those things. But we have built up an audience. And people will talk and people will tell you what they want or what they don’t want, if they’re confused if they’re not confused, like all of those things. And so it’s in listening to our people that we’re able to understand the best timing for the new passions and the new adventures that we want to take within entrepreneurship.

Megan Martin 28:18
Yes. All right, friends. Well, I hope this has been encouraging to you cat and I love us some multi passionate people. So if that’s you, we want to connect hang out with us on Instagram, come DMS and tell us about what you do and how you are multi passionate but that is it for today and we cannot wait to catch you in the next conversation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai